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…