St. Thomas More Chicago

Fr. Robert Behnke

The Gospel of Christ brings us more than man could ever have conceived or imagined. But in this way -- this higher way – Jesus Christ fulfills man’s basic need and desire: to have union with God. God knows better than man what man needs and how best to fulfill it. In the sacrament of the altar–the Most Blessed Sacrament–God gives us all that we need—God gives us Himself.


This Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ began in the 1200s. It was begun in order for the Church to be able to express a joyful gratitude for the Gift of the Blessed Sacrament in a way that was not possible on Holy Thursday because of the nearness of the horrible events of Our Lord’s passion and death commemorated the following day. The first Holy Thursday, the day Our Lord gave the Church Himself in the Holy Eucharist, was a day steeped in sadness, because the next day was Good Friday–the day of the cross, the day of Our Lord’s atoning death on the cross. The Mass given to the Church on Holy Thursday was an anticipation of the sacrifice of the cross on Good Friday–an anticipation of earth at last being able to touch heaven. The purpose in instituting today’s feast was to focus specifically on the Gift of the Real Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. The Mass and the Office for Corpus Christi were composed by St. Thomas Aquinas upon the request of Pope Urban IV in the year 1264. It is unquestionably a classic piece of liturgical work, wholly in accord with the best liturgical traditions—Pange Lingua and Tantum Ergo, O Sacrum Convivium, Ecce Panis Angelorum—all these hymns were composed and used first for this feast day. It is a perfect work of art. So on this feast, we are invited to contemplate the Mystery of the Blessed Sacrament in Itself: What It is; what It does – and, what happens to you and me when you and I receive Holy Communion


How many Catholics really expect anything to happen when they receive Holy Communion; how many Catholics really expect to be changed by the Mass they attend? How many expect to hear a Word proclaimed and preached that will powerfully change the way they think and the way they see the entire world? How many expect actually to encounter Jesus Christ and be changed forever by that encounter? How many expect to receive Holy Communion and to be marvelously helped by this reception in ways far beyond what Tylenol or Advil or Prozac or any other medicine could ever achieve in the physical order? On this Feast of Corpus Christi, what do you expect from receiving the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion?


Some people put more faith in Aleve and Tylenol than they do in Holy Communion. That’s because when they take Tylenol they expect something to happen. But many people don’t really expect anything to happen when they receive Holy Communion. But consider this: According to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, God did not have to redeem us by assuming a human body. There are bound to be, Thomas opines, other ways in which God could have saved us. The sisters told us in school that, by a simple thought, by a momentary act of His divine will, God could have effected man’s salvation. The humanity of Christ, then, becomes an especially significant instrument of our redemption. The humiliated and then raised and glorified body of Christ becomes a visible sign of redemption that stretches out across time and space to reach all creation, beginning with Adam. Consider the following passage from an ancient sermon read during the Office of Holy Saturday…The Lord goes in to them [in Hades] holding His victorious weapon, His Cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees Him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: 'May the Lord be with you all.' And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand, He raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light….


In this passage the hand of Christ, his Body, raises Adam to life. As Catholics we all believe in the true humanity of Christ; the consequences of that belief are even more radical: Christ makes all His followers members of His Body, the Church, and gives us physical, bodily signs: the sacraments. …Take this and eat it, this is My Body; take It and drink It, this is My Blood….. If we believe in something so unimaginable as God Himself becoming one of us for our salvation, if we believe something so astonishing that, imperfect as we are, we are made members of that holy Body, the Church, why would we ever doubt yet another amazing grace which is, through His own promise, Christ is really and truly and substantially present in the Eucharist?


The Body and Blood of Christ in Their sacramental, mystical Form under the appearances of bread and wine are left for us so that our lives as members of the Body of Christ, the Church, may be strengthened and nourished by the Body of Christ, the Eucharist. This again is part of Jesus' promise: …Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day…. This is the radical consequence of the seemingly simple act of receiving Holy Communion, eating what appears, to the uninformed and to the unbeliever, a tiny small piece of unleavened bread—That Which, when I received my first Holy Communion 56 years ago, we approached, with a simple faith and childlike understanding, What we together called, in our child’s prayer, our Little White Guest. That Little White Guest repeatedly affords us an extraordinary level of intimacy with God Who not only walked on earth 2,000 years ago and established us as members of His Body in the Church but also feeds us with Himself. How can an intimacy greater than any other intimacy we can possibly experience this side of heaven not possibly change us? How can that intimacy not but change the way we think and change the way we see the entire world? How can we not be changed by this, our own personal encounter with the intimacy of God? Only by the mistaken use of the power of our own freedom, a freedom given to us by God which allows every man to reject even the intimacy of an encounter with God. And our own world proves to us the truth of this intimacy with divinity—proven by the many souls who strive to live as God has taught us to live: sins are put to death; they have more joy in the Lord, more confidence and serenity, less anxiety and resentfulness. They love more, are more compassionate and have more understanding. They do not fear most of the things that they used to fear. They are less greedy and more generous. And they do not boast, since it is not they who have done any of this. It is Jesus in them. They are not yet fully what they want to be but they are also not what they used to be. Likewise our world proves to us the truth of the ability to reject this intimacy—proven today by the sins made possible by the misuse of our freedom—so many evils that cry to heaven for justice—all wars: the war of our culture against marriage and the family (late last/Friday night, same sex marriage became legal in New York state by the action of the state legislature and the signature of the “Catholic” governor); the casual approach by many—in the government, some medical providers, some politician and too many citizens—to the elderly, the terminally ill, those challenged mentally or physically; most of all the rejection of divine intimacy no more obvious in our own time than by the continuing evil of the murder of the bodies of the unborn in the wombs of their mothers—the sin of abortion that, with more agony than any other evil in our own time, cries to heaven for justice; an act that is a total rejection of intimacy with God.


Again, St. Thomas Aquinas instructs us: …My dearly beloved, is it not beyond human power to express the ineffable delicacy of this sacrament in which spiritual sweetness is tasted in its very source, in which is brought to mind the remembrance of that all-excelling charity which Christ showed in His sacred passion? Surely it was to impress more profoundly upon the hearts of the faithful the immensity of this charity that our loving Savior instituted this sacrament at the last supper when, having celebrated the Pasch with His disciples. He was about to leave the world and return to the Father. It was to serve as an unending remembrance of His passion, as the fulfillment of ancient types — this the greatest of His miracles….


Today, and always, let us use our freedom to be thankful for the Gift of the Body and Blood of Christ that so perfectly corresponds to our needs as it nourishes our hearts and our spirits, and as It feeds and purifies all our senses: touch and vision, smell, taste and hearing. …He gave Himself, what more could He give? O, how He loves you and me….

Fr. Robert Behnke
Corpus Christi, June 26, 2011