TWO SHIPS PASSING IN THE NIGHT

A SERMON FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

I didn’t think there was anything about the Novus Ordo Church that could shock me any more.  I thought I’d heard it all.  But last Monday I attended a wake down on Long Island. It seemed normal enough—the priest was from India of course, as they can’t get American vocations any more, but he blessed the casket and sprinkled it with holy water.  All very normal, and Catholic enough on the surface. However, he was extremely concerned that some of the people present were not Catholic, and therefore shouldn’t be there, which I thought was a bit odd, given the fanatical glee the modernists take in being ecumenical.   But then of course I found out he was referring to me, a “traditionalist,” their only real enemy.  A typical Novus Ordo wake so far, but I wasn’t looking forward to the funeral.  In fact, I made my excuses that I couldn’t attend as I had to be up here in Monroe.

However, I did get a report of how the service went.  The priest set the tone in his sermon when he announced that there was something he “disagreed with Jesus about.”  Apparently, he wanted to correct the Son of God and Second Person of the Blessed Trinity on a couple of things he’d got wrong. 

While “Father” came down a little hard on Almighty God, he seemed very anxious to make life as comfortable as possible for the grieving family of the deceased: “I know you’re all sad and upset,” he says, “so don’t bother kneeling for the consecration, I’m sure it’s too much for you.”  He then proceeded to set down the rules for Communion.  Now, you and I know what the rules for Communion are: you must be a practicing Catholic, in the state of grace, and fasting for the prescribed time.  Simple, but sufficient.  At funerals, we usually don’t distribute Communion at all, so as to avoid any sacrilege inadvertently caused by non-Catholics receiving.  But this priest had a different idea.  He declared that he wanted everybodythere to come to Communion.  Everybody.  Even if they had committed a “really big sin”, they should come to the communion rail, tell the priest their sin (in front of everyone) and then receive anyway.  “And if you really don’t want to go to communion, you can still come up to the communion rail for a hug and a blessing!”  I’m not sure what the correct procedure is for hugging a communicant at the altar rail, when you have the Blessed Sacrament in one hand and the ciborium in the other.  Maybe I would have to pass them to one of the altar girls to hold?

I really didn’t want to talk to you about more horrors from the Novus Ordo. You know them well enough, and you have all had enough sense to walk away from them and come to a church where that kind of thing is as out of place as a gospel choir at a royal wedding. But I mention it for this reason: there are still hundreds of thousands of people in Connecticut this morning attending their blasphemous version of Mass in these churches, while here, how many are we?  Dozens perhaps?  Did you ever ask yourself, am I really doing the right thing in walking away from “The Church” and joining a bunch of reactionaries who don’t know when it’s time to move on and get with it?

If you ever do catch yourself wondering such things, today’s Gospel is for your ears to hear and your mind to absorb.  Its message is clear, and yet there are many aspects of it that may go overlooked.  Today, I want to mention to you one of those little details that reveals a great truth. Listen: “Jesus stood by the lake of Gennesaret,and saw twoships standing by the lake.”  Two ships.  “And he entered into one of the ships.”  So there are two ships, but our Lord entered into only one of them. Which one?  The one that belonged to Saint Peter.  How do we differentiate between the two boats?  Because in the boat of Peter, our Lord is present.  “He sat down and taught the people out of the ship.”  Out of St. Peter’s ship, the ship which represents the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.  Out of this ship, the ship of Peter upon whom Christ would build his Church, and from which he would teach all people with the truths he would reveal.  Truths that never change, dogmas that cannever be altered by any of the devilish imaginations of men.

And today, how are we to know if we are on the right boat, in other words, in the right Church.  By the words of Christ we hear being taught in that Church.  By the same truths that continue to be taught today, as revealed by our divine Saviour all those years ago.

And what of that other boat?  The one our Lord did not enter into and sit down and teach from. Were the fishermen bad people on that boat?  Actually no. They were the partners of St. Peter, the two sons of Zebedee, James, who would become the first bishop of Jerusalem, and John, who would write a gospel, who would look after the Blessed Mother until her Assumption into heaven, and who would be given the amazing vision of the Apocalypse.  These were hardly bad people!  But they did lack somethingat that point in time. 

St. Peter, you see, had a kind of blind faith in our Lord from this their very first meeting.  He had just spent a miserable night, catching no fish, and now had finished washing his nets, ready to go home and sleep.  But then this man Jesus comes along and tells him to cast out again into the deep.  The gospel doesn’t tell us what James and John were doing.  But certainly, they did not follow Peter right away as he took his newly cleaned nets and started throwing them over the side again where they had caught no fish all night.  Not until they saw Peter pulling in a multitude of fish so heavy the boat was in danger of sinking, only then did they decide to get in on the action and follow Peter.  Not from their faith in our Lord, but from the very visible miracle they witnessed. It took a sign for them to act, while Peter simply trusted Jesus.

I hope we are all trulyon Peter’s boat.  I hope we are all ready to follow his example and not be discouraged by the fact that we don’t have as many fish as other churches.  The mega-churches of the protestants with their thousands of parishioners, the many millions of devout Muslims who pray to their Allah whenever the call goes out from the minarets, and yes, the teeming multitudes of modernists, who fill St. Peter’s Square in Rome, and adulate the man who claims to be Peter’s successor.  Yes, they have fish.  And lots of them.  But that’s all they are.  Fish. Poor creatures who have been netted by false fishermen, who drag them into their nets for their own purposes.  The pastors of those mega-churches all have their personal jets.  The Muslim Mullahs seem set to take over the world.  And those poor Novus Ordo Catholics are now being led to the slaughter by a man who is more interested in saving the planet from global warming than saving their souls.  Saving their souls from what, after all?  He doesn’t believe hell exists, so what could he possibly save them from?

There’s essentially no difference between them. They all have their different agendas, but saving souls is very rarely the top of their list.  And Christ is most certainly not sitting in their boat and teaching the truth.  There are but two boats, Catholic and non-Catholic.  The non-Catholic is everyone from Pope Francis to the most radical of atheists, they’re all basically the same.  They all have in common this one truth, that they don’t have the truth.

In the true Catholic Church, the one we belong to, we do follow Peter.  We follow his trust in our Lord, and we inherit his profession of being fishermen. Not fishers of fish, like all those other false religions, but fishers of men.  If we traditional Catholics seem to have but few fish in our churches, we can console ourselves that these are not soul-less fish, but real souls, who have been redeemed by Christ, and who are ready to follow him to salvation.  We don’t need signs and miracles to tell us this, just the simple, abiding peace of knowing we are in Peter’s boat, sitting with our Lord, and listening to hiswords, not the babble of a hundred thousand lies.

Hiswords.  “Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away.”  Christ’s words are the truths of our faith, and of our worship. They shall not and cannot change or be changed.  Not by the vain attempts of protestants or modernists, not even by the cataclysmic ending of the world.  Not even by God himself, because his words are true, and God is Truth.  That Word, which was in the beginning, the Word that was withGod in the beginning, the Word that isGod, that Word is made flesh on our altar today at this Mass.  That word dwells amongst us, in this church, in this boat of Peter and will continue to dwell with us unto eternity itself. 

I don’t need to tell you that these two boats, the one Catholic and the other not, are two ships that pass in the night.  They pass each other because they are going in two opposite directions. So if you intend that your final destination be heaven, if you seek God, be at peace that here, in this boat, this church, you have found the Real Presence of that God abiding with us.  But if the comfort of God’s presence is not good enough for you, by all means try seeking the comfort of your fellow man on that other boat.  As you’re sailing full steam towards the rocks, you might not get Holy Communion, but you can always ask for a hug.

I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY

A HYMN FOR THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

1. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Come unto Me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down,
Thy head upon My breast."
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary and worn and sad;
I found in Him a resting-place,
And He has made me glad.

2. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one,
Stoop down and drink and live."
I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream.
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.

3. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"I am this dark world's Light.
Look unto Me; thy morn shall rise
And all thy day be bright."
I looked to Jesus, and I found
In Him my Star, my Sun;
And in that Light of Life I'll walk
Till traveling days are done.

By Horatio Bonar, 1846

THE WELCOME MAT OF GRACE

A SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF SACRED HEART

In today’s Gospel, our Lord asks the question, “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?”  It’s a question which would have made a lot of sense to the shepherds and farming people who followed him.  They knew all about sheep, and the loss of one of them would have been something they would have taken personally.  The sheep were a source of income for the shepherd’s family, who would sell the wool for clothing and the meat for food to the other villagers.  And so the sheep ended up being a source of food and clothing to the whole village, and it was the shepherd’s job to be responsible for every last one of them.

One of the routine jobs a shepherd had was to count his sheep, and make sure none of them had gone astray.  And if one were missing, it was not uncommon for him to leave the others and go in search of the lost sheep.  Christ the Good Shepherd uses the analogy to refer to us, his sheep, all of us sinners no doubt, but sinners who hopefully know their way back to the confessional at the end of the week.

Not so the lost sheep.  This poor little lamb who has lost his way does notreturn to the confessional.  There are many reasons why not.  I’ve come across many such little black sheep in my time, and usually it does not end well, no matter what the reason.  Sometimes, on the other hand, God provides an unusually generous amount of grace to bring back these sheep to the fold, and sometimes they even listen to this invitation from God, guiding them back out of the darkness of their sin to the light of sanctifying grace.

Today’s question for you is a very simple one, and you will all find it easy to answer, although some may find it difficult to do anything about it. Are you a lost sheep?  Or are you one of the other ninety-nine, patiently waiting for the Good Shepherd to come back from his long and patient search for that lost sheep?  If you fall into the latter category, you can continue your vigil, patiently waiting for the good Lord to come again in glory and judge us all.  Stay out of trouble, strive to grow in God’s love, and above all, stay as close to him as you can by your frequent reception of the divine Eucharist.

But I look to the others in this congregation, who think of themselves as “lost sheep”.  Lost sheep, lost souls, what’s the difference?  You don’t feel as though you will go to heaven when you die.  You have perhaps despaired of God’s forgiveness, of your own ability to give up a sinful lifestyle, or maybe you are simply enjoying your sins too much to even wantto give them up?  There are such people all over the world, and statistically it is more than likely that some of them are here with us today.  

What a sad place to be, for sure.  We all sin, but a wonderful part of our humanity, one that our Lord particularly loves, is the grief we feel after we have sinned, the repentance that follows, and the resolution to do better that allows us to move on, away from our past iniquities towards a future that has more hope and less sin.  As priests, we hear the steps of this journey in almost every confession.  And while we may sigh in frustration sometimes that a penitent doesn’t seem to be shaking off some particular sin, or conquering his vices, we understand from experience that people are usually trying, and we pray that Almighty God will continue to give them the graces to do better and keep them out of mischief. 

Sometimes we are grief-stricken to notice that one of our penitents is gradually coming to confession less and less frequently, that he, or she, displays fewer outward signs of sorrow for having offended God.  And we steel ourselves for the day when they cease to come to confession altogether.  We wrack our brains to think of a way to bring them back, we preach sermons, we reach out if we can, but usually in vain.  The truth is, they used to come, and now they don’t.  They were forgiven by God more times than they can remember, only to step out of church back into the world and to their sad behavior, like a dog returning to its vomit.  Eventually, God does withdraw his graces from those so ungrateful as to throw them back in his face, adding to their own sins by doing so.  In his mercy, God now allows such a lost soul to wallow in the depths of his depravity for a while, before again, reaching out to draw him back with his divine grace.  Such is the patient mercy of a loving God, and as priests, we watch for the opportunity to reach out with God, as his instruments, to such lost sheep desperately seeking their way home. 

I remember one such soul in my early years as a priest.  It was an elderly lady who had left her husband and had been living with another man for many years.  On her deathbed she called for a priest, and because of my inexperience, I was a little hesitant to provide the Last Rites, repeating to myself how she would need to make a firm resolution to leave the man she was living with, and return to the sacraments.  Such are the doubts of man.  When I visited her in the hospital, she grasped the crucifix out of my hands, holding it to her lips, and her eyes filled with tears.  She made a good confession, received Extreme Unction, and I left the crucifix with her.  She spent the next few weeks being moved between ICU and other hospital rooms, finally being sent to the hospice where she died.  They found my crucifix under her pillow. 

Stories like that one are more common than we think, and should help all of us, I think, get through life with a little more joy and a little more faith. Indeed, our Lord himself tells us that there is greater joy among the angels of heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.  If you are one of those lost sheep, don’t be afraid to return to the arms of your Good Shepherd.  While the devil whispers in your ear that you’re too far from God’s grace to be worthy of ever returning to it, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, on the other hand, stands before you with open arms, ready to welcome you back into the fold. Your return to grace will be such a cause of joy for so many of us, so for once, don’t ignore the welcome mat of grace that God is spreading out before you. “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”

THERE'S A WIDENESS IN GOD'S MERCY

A HYMN FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF SACRED HEART

1  There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in his justice,
Which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Saviour;
There is healing in His blood.

2  There is no place where earth's sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven;
There is no place where earth's failings 
Have such kindly judgment given.
There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.

3  For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of the mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful,
We should take him at his word;
And our life would be thanksgiving
For the goodness of the Lord.

By Fr. Frederick William Faber, 1862

I HAVE FOUND THE PIECE WHICH I HAD LOST

A MESSAGE FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF SACRED HEART

In today’s Gospel, our Lord tells the parable of the shepherd who loses one of his hundred sheep and leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one that has wandered off.  It is a powerful image, and is the one we usually recall when we want to impress on ourselves the importance of doing all we can to bring back the sinner to repentance.  So important is this idea, however, that our Lord provides a second example, that of the woman who loses one of her ten pieces of silver.  What does she do when she discovers one of her silver coins is missing?  She lights a candle, and sweeps the house, seeking diligently till she finds it.

This coming Wednesday, coincidentally, we will be celebrating the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, who, as everyone knows, is the patron saint of lost things.  We typically invoke this saint when we lose something—he is always ready to intercede on our behalf and somehow inspires us to look in the right place.  There’s a common prayer that goes “Tony, Tony, look around, something’s lost and must be found!”  I prefer to substitute “Dear St. Anthony” for the “Tony, Tony” part, as it strikes me as a bit more polite, but the idea’s the same, and this great Franciscan saint always seems to pull through for us.

Of course, we need not limit our prayers to finding only material things we’ve misplaced.  Remember today’s Gospel, and the woman who finds her missing silver coin. She calls her friends and her neighbors together, saying ‘Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.’  And then our Lord points out the meaning of the parable: “I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”  If we placed a tenth of the energy we spent in looking for missing car keys, earrings and cell phones, into going after sinners and helping them find forgiveness, how much more worthwhile it would be, and how much more eager would St. Anthony be to help us!

Here’s a prayer to St. Anthony that’s a tad more formal than the one we mentioned above, and which you would do well to copy out and save for one of those annoying, frustrating, or even tragic times, when something or someone you love goes missing, either physically or spiritually:

Saint Anthony, perfect imitator of Jesus Christ, who received from God the special power of restoring lost things, grant that I may find (mention your petition)which has been lost. At least restore to me peace and tranquility of mind, the loss of which has afflicted me even more than my material loss. To this favor I ask another of you: that I may always remain in possession of the true good that is God. Let me rather lose all things than lose God, my supreme good. Let me never suffer the loss of my greatesttreasure, eternal life with God. Amen.

JUDICA ME, DEUS

A SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

One of the most dramatic and significant things that ever happened in man’s history was overshadowed by something even more dramatic and significant that happened at exactly the same moment.  I refer to the veil of the Holy of Holies being torn asunder at the very moment our blessed Lord died on the cross.  We must realize, however, that both events occurred simultaneously because they were both actually part of the same event, the bloody and violent transition from the Old Testament to the New.  

As the veil of the Holy of Holies was torn asunder, it opened up that most sacred of rooms within the Temple of Sion, allowing man to set eyes for the first time on the place where God dwelt.  Henceforth, only the High Priest had ever been allowed to enter into the Holy of Holies, and this only once a year.  Henceforth, no High Priest would ever again be required by God to enter this room, into the presence of the Most High, sprinkling the blood of beasts in propitiation for sin.  The Precious Blood of the Saviour had now replaced forever that animal sacrifice.

There was a reason this Holy of Holies was treated with such solemn respect by the Jews.  It was the place where God dwelt among his chosen people. In one sense, God is everywhere, but in a very special sense he actually dwelt in this Holy of Holies, a foreshadowing of the Real Presence.  As the 21^stpsalm proclaims: “Thou dost dwell in the holy place, O thou worship of Israel.”  And what did the High Priest see when he entered into this Holy of Holies?  There before his awestruck gaze he would behold, no less than the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat of God from which God spoke directly to man.

The original Ark of the Covenant was a box made of acacia wood, in which were three things of the highest importance to the Jewish people: the priestly staff of Aaron, the two tablets of Moses that displayed the ten commandments, and a vessel containing some of the manna with they had been fed and kept alive in the wilderness. The Ark was open at the top, ad God gave very precise directions to Moses for the making of a lid.  It was to be of pure gold, with golden cherubim at each end, facing each other and covering the Ark of the Covenant with their outstretched wings.  This lid would be called the Mercy Seat of God, “and there,” he said, “I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment to the children of Israel.”

In the New Covenant, it is we who are the high priests, who accept God’s invitation to enter into the Holy of Holies when we receive the Blessed Sacrament, and God “communes with us” in Communion.  We are called to become ourselves the Holy of Holies, as God himself now dwells within us.  No matter how unworthy we may be, we humbly ask our Lord to pronounce the word of mercy from his mercy seat… “Say but the word and my soul shall be healed.”

And when that Day of Wrath shall come, and we shall ask God that we may enter under hisroof forever, the day when we shall stand in awe before the dreadful Judgment Seat of God, we should pray that this Judgment Seat shall indeed be the Mercy Seat of God.

But the judgments of this life are as nothing compared to the next.  At the Last Judgment, our blessed Lord will speak to us all who come before his presence seeking mercy.  When he is seated on the right hand of God the Father Almighty to judge both the quick and the dead, he will indeed commune with us. And what will he speak to us about when he judges us?  He will speak to us of those three things beneath his Mercy Seat, contained in the Ark of the Covenant.  He will speak to us of the Staff of Aaron, the Ten Commandments and the Manna.

The Staff of Aaron symbolizes not only the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament but even more so its fulfillment in the apostolic priesthood of the New.  Our Church was founded on these apostles, and every priest who offers Mass validly today receives the power to do so from the Holy Orders passed down to him from those same apostles to whom Christ first gave them at the Last Supper.  If we are members of that one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, founded on St. Peter and his companions, then we are invited to commune with God in the Blessed Sacrament.  And on Judgment Day, Christ will hold up the priestly staff of Aaron before us, and he will ask if we hold and practice the Catholic faith in our belief and worship.  Are we truly members of that one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church, which he founded on St. Peter the Apostle?  Do we worship him in the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Mass which he gave his apostles at the Last Supper, and which they passed down to their successors to be transmitted to us intact?  If we believe and worship rightly, then we may be at peace.  We have passed the first test.

At the Last Judgment, having determined that we are truly members of the Church, believing in all her teachings, and worshiping God rightly, just as our Lord had taught the apostles, then what?  Then Christ will take into his sacred hands the two tablets containing the ten commandments, and he will hold them up before us, and he will show us how every sin of our life is etched in stone next to each of these commandments. From his judgment seat, he will pronounce us guilty of all our sins, and then it will be for us to show the extent to which we have repented our sins, made reparation for them, and done our best not to repeat them.  And if we are in the state of grace, we have nothing to fear.  Ours sins are forgiven and again, we may be at peace.  We have passed the second test.

And then finally, Christ will reach down one more time into the Ark of the Covenant, and this time he will hold up the vessel containing some of the manna that our fathers in the faith, the Hebrew children, had gathered up in the wilderness.  Christ’s words will suddenly echo in our minds, perhaps with a thud of guilt on our part, “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat…  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.”

Our judgment now hangs in the balance.  We have shown ourselves to be members of the Church, following the true faith, attending the true Mass.  We have shown ourselves to be sorry for our many and multifold sins.  But now, in this third and last test, dare we look upon the bread that Christ holds up before us in his sacred and reverent hands, dare we listen to those words he pronounces as he offers us himself in all his love: “Take ye, and eat ye all of this, for this is my Body.”  How will we feel then when we remember all those times we could have gone to Mass but didn’t, all those times we could have, shouldhave received Holy Communion, but didn’t?  And maybe there were times when we most certainly should nothave received Holy Communion, but did anyway. Will we be able to look our divine Judge in the eyes and at least be able to tell him that we may have done such terrible and ungrateful things, but that we repented of them, and went and sinned no more?  Or will our futile excuses be nothing more than bitter memories of how we squandered our salvation, the only real gift worth having?  “I can’t go to Mass this week, too busy, too tired, it’s too far, I pray thee, have me excused… can’t go to Communion this week, needed my coffee, my breakfast, didn’t have time to go to Confession, don’t want to go to Confession… I pray thee, have me excused.”  

We shall then be judged for the third and last time, irrevocably, with a judgment that will last forever.  By now, we should know what to expect.  Our Lord has told us already: “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day… Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”  But unfortunately there are those other, less comforting words: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.”  Every Communion we make, or don’t make, is fraught with danger. We must be well prepared to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord in a manner befitting the Holy of Holies, and to do so on a regular basis.  

Those three little items contained in the Ark of the Covenant are there, waiting for our judgment day.  They will beour judgment.  For this reason, before we take Holy Communion, to remind ourselves of these three things, we cry out three times to the Lamb of God who sitteth on the right hand of the Father on his Mercy Seat, “O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world…”  Twice we ask for mercy, and lastly for that final and eternal peace that only a merciful judgment can bring.

One final point, so that you know I’m not merely making all these connections out of thin air…  Read the three prayers that come after the Agnus Deiat Mass.  The priest reads them silently just before he receives Holy Communion.  In the first prayer, as Christ spoke to the apostles “Peace I leave you, my peace I give unto you,” imagine him holding up the staff of Aaron as we pray to him to “regard not my sins, but the faith of thy Church,” and ask that we should never be separated from that holy Church, her faith and her true Mass.

In the second prayer, imagine Christ holding up the ten commandments as he reminds us of our sins, and listen to the prayer of the priest: “Set me free from all my sins, and from all evil things: and make me in such wise ever to abide in thy commandments that I may never be separated from thee.”

Finally, our blessed Lord holds up before us the manna.  “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him that taketh away the sins of the world.”  And let us make the most profound and humble act of love we can, and when our Lord invites, or rather commands us “Take ye, and eat ye all of this,” let us pray, most earnestly, the third prayer with the priest  “O Lord Jesu Christ, I thine unworthy servant, do presume to take thy Body: but let not this act be unto my judgment and damnation: rather let it, through thy mercy, become a safeguard and remedy, both for soul and body: who livest and reignest, God, world without end.  Amen. 

O GODHEAD HID

A HYMN FOR CORPUS CHRISTI

1. O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore thee,
who truly art within the forms before me;
to thee my heart I bow with bended knee,
as failing quite in contemplating thee.

2. Sight, touch and taste in thee are each deceived,
the ear alone most safely is believed:
I believe all the Son of God has spoken;
than truth’s own word there is no truer token.

3. God only on the cross lay hid from view;
but here lies hid at once the manhood too:
and I, in both professing my belief,
make the same prayer as the repentant thief.

4. Thy wounds, as Thomas saw, I do not see;
yet thee confess my Lord and God to be;
make me believe thee ever more and more,
in thee my hope, in thee my love to store.

5. O thou memorial of our Lord’s own dying!
O bread that living art and vivifying!
Make ever thou my soul on thee to live:
ever a taste of heavenly sweetness give.

6. O loving Pelican! O Jesu, Lord!
Unclean I am, but cleanse me in thy blood;
of which a single drop, for sinners spilt,
is ransom for a world’s entire guilt.

7. Jesu, whom for the present veiled I see,
what I so thirst for, oh, vouchsafe tome:
that I may see thy countenance unfolding,
and may be blest thy glory in beholding.

By St. Thomas Aquinas (13th cent.), translated by Edward Caswall (1814-78)

I PRAY THEE, HAVE ME EXCUSED

A MESSAGE FOR THE SUNDAY IN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

One of the most challenging things we can do during the Octave of Corpus Christi is to ask ourselves what should be our reaction to the extraordinary gift from God that is the Blessed Sacrament.

We have been told since we were children the three ways how to approach God’s greatest gift.  There are three aspects to this sacrament:  it is first of all the continuation of the Holy Sacrifice of Calvary, the means by which Christ was able to perpetuate that sacrifice and make it a part of our daily lives, namely through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. So the first thing we need to do is to go to Mass.

However, mere attendance at Mass is not sufficient.  God wants more of our time than merely half an hour a day. Imagine those other 23½ hours of the day – where is our Blessed Lord all that time?  God of course is everywhere, and certainly we should take him with us spiritually wherever we go.  But Christ also has a Real Presence in this world.  The apostles begged him to “abide with us” when he left them to return to his Father at the Ascension – and abide with us he did!  He left his Real Presence in the form of the Holy Eucharist, which remains in our churches long after the Mass has ended and the people have emptied out back into the world.  This Real Presence in the tabernacle demands a response, for after all, how can we possibly ignore the presence of God dwelling among us?  This is the second thing we need to do – visit the Blessed Sacrament and spend time with our Lord in the tabernacle.

And finally, our third and most important response to God’s gift of the Blessed Sacrament is to receive him in Holy Communion.  This is the ultimate purpose of this greatest of the seven sacraments – to allow us to enter into union with God himself.  After all, when God became man, it was not to demean the divinity by becoming mortal and material, but to elevate our humanity, so that we may be absorbed into the eternal and divine nature of God.  When we eat regular bread, it becomes a part of us, it is absorbed into our bloodstream, giving us strength and nutrition.  But when we eat the Bread of Life, it is we who are absorbed into God himself.

Today’s Gospel passes over these three elements of God’s greatest gift in order to focus on the majority of people who, astonishingly enough, reject them. Three times in this parable, the Lord invites us to go to Mass, to visit him in the tabernacle, to receive him in Communion.  And three times we say “No!  I pray thee, have me excused.  Don’t bother me!”  This is our challenge, then, each Corpus Christi – to ask ourselves, honestly, if this sad and ungrateful response is our own…