15th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2023

A few weeks ago, I told you about a parishioner who approached me after Mass. She had been to a local Baptist Church for a concert and was startled to see no altar in the Church’s sanctuary. I explained to her that many evangelical Protestant Churches don’t have a permanent altar at the front of their Church because they only celebrate communion maybe once a month or even every other month. Their emphasis isn’t on Sacraments but on the Word and preaching, so the pulpit or lectern is the center of their worship space. When they hold a Communion Service, they bring out a Communion table and temporarily put it in the sanctuary. Here in a Catholic Church, the altar is very obvious. Along with the Tabernacle, it is the primary furnishing in our Church. They are the focus of our attention whenever we come into a Catholic Church.

This difference in furniture is symbolic of our different beliefs. Catholic Churches have such noticeable altars because the Eucharist is the sum and summit of our faith. We believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. We believe Christ is present in Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity whenever we celebrate the Mass. Most Protestant Churches don’t have prominent altars because they believe communion is just a symbol of Christ’s presence among us.

Today is the fifth in a series of six homilies I’ve been giving on the theme, “It’s a Mystery to Me.” In these homilies, I’ve been explaining the Mass. I’m delivering them because the bishops of our country are conducting a three-year Eucharistic revival. The revival started in 2022, but a few weeks ago, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, we started the year focused here on the parish level. The Eucharistic Revival will culminate next summer with a Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.

Our bishops recognized the need for this revival after the Pew Center for the Study of Religion in America released a poll in 2018 that found only about one-third of U.S. Catholics say they believed our Catholic teaching regarding Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. The study claimed that most Catholics cling to the belief that the Eucharist is only a symbol of Christ’s presence. That is the Protestant and not our Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. It is distressing to discover so many Catholics misunderstand Church teaching about the Eucharist. However, the survey results also found that a large majority of Catholics have the misbelief that the official Catholic Church teaching about the Eucharist is that it is only a symbol of Christ’s presence. So, hopefully, when they discover genuine Church teaching about Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, they will accept it. I intend that by the end of this series of homilies, anyone who listens will understand the Catholic Church’s teaching about the Eucharist. If you missed any of the homilies, you can listen to them on our website, www.holyredeemerchatham.org.

Before I go on with today’s examination of the part of the Mass called the Liturgy of the Eucharist, I’d like to recap what I have taught you about the Mass quickly. First, the Mass is where we come to meet Christ. Christ makes himself present to us in four ways during Mass. He is present in all the faithful gathered for its celebration, the priest who celebrates the Mass, the Word of God we listen to, and most of all, in the Eucharist.

We learned that to get anything out of coming to Mass, we must prepare ourselves for it. I compared the Introductory Rites at the beginning of Mass to spiritual stretching exercises similar to those done before physical activity. To appreciate Mass, we must be ready spiritually to celebrate it.

Catholics are a “both” and and not an “either or” people regarding the Word and Sacraments. Both the Word of God and the Sacraments are vital to us. Next to the Eucharist, the Liturgy of the Word- when we read from scripture and listen to the homilist explain it- is the most essential part of the Mass. To appreciate the Word, we need to not only hear it but listen to it. We must let the Word of God enter our ears, go to our brains, and work its way down to transform our hearts.

Last week I explained that the Offertory at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Eucharist is more than a sort of intermission when we take up the collection and watch the priest get ready to celebrate the Eucharist. It is an opportunity to reflect on our purpose for coming to Mass. We come to worship God and offer sacrifice to God. Catholics pattern the Mass after the Jewish Passover meal. I said that at the first Passover, God instructed the Israelites to procure an unblemished lamb. They were to get the lamb four days before slaughtering it because God wanted them to become attached to it. For an offering to be a real sacrifice, we must give up something we feel connected to. Does your budget offering to your parish feel like a real sacrifice?

Now we are about to celebrate the Liturgy of the Eucharist when the priest, acting in the person of Christ, convects the Eucharist. As I introduce the beginning of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, notice that I begin by saying, “The Lord be with you.” It is the third of four times I will use that expression in the Mass. I say it at the beginning of Mass and before I begin to read the Gospel, the most important of the four scripture readings. When the priest says that, it is comparable to him saying, “Heads up” or “Hey, pay close attention here because something important is about to happen.” It reminds us we must prepare to refocus, participate, listen, and move along the path to a deeper belief in the Eucharist.

Our Catholic belief is that through the priest’s prayer and actions during the Eucharistic Prayer, God transubstantiates the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ without changing their outward appearance. This belief comes from Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel Chapter 6:47-66, part of His Bread of Life Discourse.

In that sermon, Jesus tells his disciples:

“I am the living bread that comes down from Heaven;

Whoever eats this bread will live forever;

And the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The religious authorities and many of Jesus’ listeners found this statement abhorrent. The Law of Moses strictly forbids the Jews from having contact with blood or flesh with blood still in it. They felt he was advocating cannibalism. Jesus doesn’t back down from his statement. He doesn’t say, “Oh, I meant this only as a symbol.” No, he doubles down and says:

“Amen, amen, I say to you,

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man

And drink his blood,

You do not have life within you.”

This statement causes most of His disciples to abandon Jesus. Only the apostles do not leave Him.

The Eucharist is the great mystery of our Catholic faith. It isn’t the sort of mystery that can be solved by scientific research or gathering clues. It is a heavenly mystery known only by our divine God. Since we are part of a material world, it isn’t easy to imagine how God can transform bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood without changing their outward appearance or taste.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ponder it. We need to resist the temptation to limit God. We must ask ourselves, “What if?” What if God can send His Son to us and do it not only symbolically? What if something happens during the Liturgy of the Eucharist that is beyond our senses and ability to perceive mentally? What if it is God’s intention for us to struggle with our faith? What if God is asking us to make a great leap of faith? Ask yourself, what if our what-ifs are true?

We celebrate the Eucharist because Jesus commanded His disciples to do it. All four of the Gospels and Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians tell us that at the Last Supper, Jesus instructed the Apostles to celebrate the Eucharist in His memory and that He would be present to them whenever they did it.

The Apostles didn’t understand what Jesus was telling them. The Apostles didn’t recognize Jesus was preparing to depart from them physically but was leaving them the means for Him to be with them always when they celebrated the Eucharist. It is fortuitous the Apostles could not believe Jesus’ teaching at the Last Supper. If they understood His meaaning, Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection would not have occurred. There would have been no promise of eternal life for us who believe in Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.

The Apostles could only begin to believe Christ’s promise to give them His Body and Blood in the Eucharist because they prayed and followed His command to celebrate the Eucharist in His memory. While they hid themselves in the Upper Room for the fifty days from Easter to Pentecost, they prayed as a community and individually. They broke the bread together in memory of Jesus. They began to believe Jesus was present in the Eucharist and to get the courage to proclaim it to the world. 

We will only get the answers to our “What if” questions if we become people of prayer. We can only nurture our belief in Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist if we work at our relationship with God, as did the Apostles. If you don’t pray for at least a few minutes daily, begin to do so today. Find a quiet spot where you can listen to God and not talk at God. As part of your prayer, read a few scripture verses and reflect on what God is trying to say to you through His Holy Word. Make sure it is your habit to attend Mass every weekend and come to receive the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Jesus Christ’s gift of the Eucharist is world-changing because He offers us eternal life through it. Through the Eucharist, allow God to transform your world and fill it with the gift of grace so you can imitate Jesus and help partner with Christ to build the Kingdom of God.