Homily for Ordinary Time - Catechesis on the Mass, Part 1/3

Homily

Catechesis on the Mass Part 1/3 – For Use with Eucharistic Prayer I

 

            Around the year 800, in a small town in Italy called Lanciano, a priest was having doubts about his faith. He was struggling to believe that Jesus was present in the Eucharist, since it does look like ordinary bread and wine. So as he was saying Mass, he asked the Lord for a sign. And lo and behold, as he elevated the Host, it changed into visible flesh! The wine also changed into visible blood.

            For the past 1200 years, this Flesh and Blood has been preserved, and scientists have done tests on it. They found that it was heart flesh from a human male, with the same proteins that normal heart tissue has. The blood matched the heart tissue. It is one of the most remarkable miracles in the history of the Church, and I have been blessed to visit Lanciano where the miracle is preserved.

            It really is far-out to think that what happens on this altar every single day is that ordinary bread and wine become the very Body and Blood of Jesus. It’s not a symbol, it’s not that we just “remember” Jesus’ Body and Blood. It literally becomes His Flesh and Blood. That is what we believe as Catholics. But how can we believe such a thing? It seems hard to wrap our minds around! I will give you three reasons why we believe that Jesus is truly present here in Holy Communion.

            First, because Jesus said so!

• The story of John 6
• “Amen, amen, I say to you…”
• Jews’ reactions
• Also, the Last Supper
  Second, because the Church always believed it!
• One of the main reasons for the persecutions was the rumors of cannibalism
• St. Paul, the Didache, early Church Fathers like Justin Martyr all agreed that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Jesus
  Third, because of Eucharistic miracles
• Lanciano
• Others such as Orvietto, Cascia
  So the Eucharist must be truly the Body and Blood of Jesus for these three reasons! If the Eucharist were just a symbol, then I am wasting my life, and you are wasting your time, because we can eat bread and drink wine at home. What makes it worth it to get up in the morning and come to Mass? Receiving His Body and Blood.
  But how can we believe this difficult teaching? We explain it by making the distinction between what something is (substance) and what something looks like (accidents).
• Wax apple example
• We call this transubstantiation and it happens at every Mass during the Consecration (this is why we ring the bells)
  In sum, if this is ordinary bread and wine, then we can all just go home and never come back, because we are here worshipping bread, and that’d just plain be weird. But if this is the true Body and Blood of Jesus, then this is the Gift of Gifts, the greatest gift we could ever receive. It means that Jesus has not abandoned us, He’s not just up in Heaven, unconcerned about us poor folks here on earth. No, it means He is here – with us – present in every Catholic Church throughout the world. I am literally risking my life on the reality of His True Presence in the Eucharist. If I’m wrong about this, then I’ve wasted my life. But if it is true, then it should never cease to amaze us with the love of our God for us!