Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA
Corpus Christi, Year C
June 6, 2010
Gen 14:18-20; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Lk 9:11-17
The following text guided today’s homily:
- Year for Priests is coming to an end on Friday. We’ve been guided by John Vianney on all the major feasts of the year. Particularly appropriate, he guides us for the Feast of Corpus Christi, because it was for him the real highlight of the year and the most important feast for assessing how he was doing as a parish priest and how his flock was doing in terms of their Catholic Faith.
- More important than Christmas and Easter for the assessment of the faith of his people. Everyone loves Christmas and everyone recognizes the importance of Easter, at least when they think about their own mortality or come to a funeral of a loved one. But St. John Vianney saw Corpus Christi as key to helping his people enter into that risen life Jesus won for us and to help them to learn how to do in time what they hopefully would have done if they were alive when Jesus was born and placed in the manger.
- Corpus Christi was the celebration of the greatest gift we’ve ever received, the gift of God. He knew that if he could get them to celebrate this feast the way it ought to be celebrated, then all the other steps he needed to get them to do to live a truly Christian life would be much easier. If he could get them to celebrate, with great joy, the gift of the Eucharist, then the other practical consequences of Jesus’ gift of himself would fall into place.
- Consequently, he prepared for Corpus Christi unlike any other feast. Vestments. Procession. Every house, even when frail. Wore the heaviest and most precious vestments.
- This was the feast in which he helped them to focus, as St. Paul did in today’s second reading, on what Jesus did for us in the Last Supper and how this is the best way to prepare for heaven. He helped them to see that this was the fulfillment of the prophetic action of Melchisedec in the first reading (as we have depicted for us in our sanctuary). This was a far greater multiplication, of a more important food to a much larger crowd, than we have in today’s Gospel.
- John Vianney’s goal was to help his parishioners not just fulfill their religious duties, but truly live a Christian life, which is a Eucharistic life. For a life that’s truly Christian, Jesus in the Eucharist must be the source and the summit, the beginning and the end.
- It involved four steps:
- Get everyone to come to Mass. This took several years of work, preaching, inviting, going out on Sundays to the fields, but eventually everyone was coming. Some might think that that is every priest’s goal, to just get them coming to Mass, to get them doing the minimum, to get them putting some money in the basket, but that’s only the first step.
- The second was to get them to understand the importance of the Mass and to pray the Mass well, to pray it as it deserved to be prayed.
- “The Mass is the most important action we can do” was his refrain, because it was the act of God.
- We enter into the Last Supper, the Cross, Jesus’ Risen life through the Mass.
- He wanted them to see that it was far more important than their other activities. Mass would take sometimes up to 3 hours. He’d preach for over an hour. There were many who had problems with the time. They would have preferred the shorter Masses in other villages, but St. John Vianney didn’t budge, because he knew that such requests were not coming from above but from below. His job was not to please them but to please God by making them saints. Like a mother who prepares hearty food for her children even though they would prefer fast food or junk food, so he really tried to help them to see the importance of the Mass.
- Real presence — Pass from head to heart to hands to feet.
- Help them to love the Lord Jesus and to treat him the way they would treat him if they really believed and loved him as he was walking around.
- Visits to the Blessed Sacrament. Treating Jesus as a friend. Treating him like we treat anyone we love.
- Leaning their head on the door.
- Daily Mass
- Real test of whether we get it, that we want to come to receive God as often as possible, that we have our real priorities straight.
- Corpus Christi helped with all of these things because it demonstrated a real faith AND LOVE in Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. He knew if they could celebrate well Corpus Christi, to rejoice in the gift of the Eucharist, then that love and enthusiasm would affect the way they prayed the Mass and savored every moment of it, that it would help them to take the real presence of Jesus in the tabernacle seriously and they’d come to pray, and they’d seek to come to be united with Jesus in the Eucharist as much as possible.
- Corpus Christi procession. We become the monstrance.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 GN 14:18-20
In those days, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine,
and being a priest of God Most High,
he blessed Abram with these words:
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
the creator of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High,
who delivered your foes into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
and being a priest of God Most High,
he blessed Abram with these words:
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
the creator of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High,
who delivered your foes into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
Responsorial Psalm PS 110:1, 2, 3, 4
R. (4b) You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The LORD said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand
till I make your enemies your footstool.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The scepter of your power the LORD will stretch forth from Zion:
“Rule in the midst of your enemies.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
“Yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in holy splendor;
before the daystar, like the dew, I have begotten you.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The LORD has sworn, and he will not repent:
“You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The LORD said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand
till I make your enemies your footstool.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The scepter of your power the LORD will stretch forth from Zion:
“Rule in the midst of your enemies.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
“Yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in holy splendor;
before the daystar, like the dew, I have begotten you.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The LORD has sworn, and he will not repent:
“You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.
Reading 2 1 COR 11:23-26
Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
“This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
Gospel LK 9:11B-17
Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God,
and he healed those who needed to be cured.
As the day was drawing to a close,
the Twelve approached him and said,
“Dismiss the crowd
so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms
and find lodging and provisions;
for we are in a deserted place here.”
He said to them, “Give them some food yourselves.”
They replied, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have,
unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people.”
Now the men there numbered about five thousand.
Then he said to his disciples,
“Have them sit down in groups of about fifty.”
They did so and made them all sit down.
Then taking the five loaves and the two fish,
and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing over them, broke them,
and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.
They all ate and were satisfied.
And when the leftover fragments were picked up,
they filled twelve wicker baskets.
and he healed those who needed to be cured.
As the day was drawing to a close,
the Twelve approached him and said,
“Dismiss the crowd
so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms
and find lodging and provisions;
for we are in a deserted place here.”
He said to them, “Give them some food yourselves.”
They replied, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have,
unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people.”
Now the men there numbered about five thousand.
Then he said to his disciples,
“Have them sit down in groups of about fifty.”
They did so and made them all sit down.
Then taking the five loaves and the two fish,
and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing over them, broke them,
and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.
They all ate and were satisfied.
And when the leftover fragments were picked up,
they filled twelve wicker baskets.