Corpus Christi Homily
June 7, 2026
The Enemies of Grace
During
the Roman persecution of Christians, a priest wanted to bring Holy Communion to
those Christians who were in prison for their Faith, but the Christian
community refused to let the priest risk his life, for without the priest there
would be no Eucharist. So one of his altar boys, a young teen named Tarcissius,
volunteered to take the Eucharist himself. No one would ever suspect someone so
young for being a clandestine Christian!
He was
going along the road, clutching the Eucharist in a cloth bag around his neck.
As he passed by a field, he saw some of his classmates who were playing a game.
They invited Tarcissius to join them, but the boy declined, hurrying along.
They began to insist, “Tarcissius, come play with us!” But he continued to
refuse. They started to gather around him, pushing and shoving, curious as to
what was in the cloth bag. But Tarcissius knew he could never allow them to see
the Eucharist, because they were pagans. They began to grow angry with him, and
soon their pushing and shoving became punching and kicking. They imagined that
Tarcissius was keeping some huge secret from them in the bag – perhaps gold or
food – and they were going to get it, one way or another. They threw him to the
ground and one peer threw a heavy rock, which struck his head. He was knocked
unconscious, which made the other boys run away, fearful of consequences for
their violence. He was later found in that field by some Christians, who
brought him home, but he died of his injuries – St. Tarcissius, a teenage
martyr for the Eucharist.
The
enemies of the Lord have always had a special hatred for the Eucharist. The
first thing that most of the tyrants of the twentieth century did was to
abolish the Mass – from Communist Russia to the Spanish Revolution to the
anti-clerical laws of Mexico in the 1920s. Pope Benedict had to make a rule
that he would only distribute Holy Communion on the tongue, because people
would take the Eucharist from him to keep as a souvenir, or worse, to desecrate
it. We sadly had someone steal the Blessed Sacrament here on Good Friday a few
years back, which broke my heart.
But in
some sideways way, this actually underscores the truth of Christ’s Real
Presence here. Why would the Evil One and his army fight against something
that’s just a symbol? You don’t see anyone stealing the Communion bread from a
Protestant Church, since everyone knows it’s ordinary bread. But here in the
tabernacle is Jesus!
Today,
however, the Evil One has a much more insidious method of attacking the
Eucharist, and I bet it’s never occurred to most of us. The Evil One wants to
separate us from the Eucharist, so he uses Sunday sports and activities.
There. I
said it.
Think
about it, though. There was a time when Sunday morning was sacrosanct. But now
good Catholics are torn, because they want to worship God at Mass, but they
spend a ton of money to get their kids into sports or dance or robotics or
whatever, and they think they’re committed to this, too. I absolutely believe
it’s a subtle ploy of the Evil One to try to separate people from the
Eucharist. I’m not saying that these activities are evil in themselves, but the
Evil One uses them to convince people that the Eucharist is a “nice extra” to
squeeze into a weekend that’s already jam-packed with stuff going on. Then when
people get back to Mass after missing a few weekends, the Evil One convinces
them to receive Communion without Confession, as if that was fine and dandy,
rather than an unworthy reception of the Lord due to the mortal sin of missing
Mass. Can we not see this as a diabolical ploy to separate people from the
Lord? Satan will never tempt you to worship a golden calf – he will tempt you
to think that the meaningless soccer game is more important than Jesus Christ.
So,
let’s just consider the consequence of our belief that Jesus Christ is truly
here, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. If we really believe that here He is,
the Lover of our soul, our Creator, our Destiny, our Peace…we would make this everything!
Barring sickness or other legitimate emergency, we would make sure that we were
here in the presence our Eucharistic Lord every Sunday.
There
is, in Fairfield County, a Jewish baseball league. It was founded so that no
games would occur on their Sabbath day. Why do we not insist on this for
Catholics, who make up 45% of the population of Fairfield County? It is nothing
but cowardice for Catholics to stay quiet when their sacred time is invaded
with sports and activities. We don’t live for sports and robotics and
gymnastics – we live for Christ, and everything else is just extra.
There
was a saint one time who structured her week around the Eucharist. She would
receive Jesus on Sunday, and then spend the next three days in thanksgiving.
The following three days of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday would be spent
spiritually preparing for her next Eucharistic union. What a happy life!
I close
with the powerful words of St. John Bosco, who said: “Do you want our Lord
to give you many graces? Visit Him [in the Eucharist] often. Do you want Him to
grant you only a few? Visit Him but seldom. Do you want the devil to attack
you? Rarely visit the Blessed Sacrament. Do you want him to flee from you?
Visit Jesus often!”
The
Evil One knows that as soon as someone abandons the Eucharist, their soul
belongs to him. The devil is much wiser these days, and does not close churches
or attack the Eucharist directly. Rather, he distracts with a thousand
activities that take us away from the True Presence of the Lord. It’s time we
Catholics said, “I’m sorry, Coach, but we’ve got an appointment we can’t miss,
and it’s with the God of the universe Who has loved us enough to give us His
Body and Blood as food for everlasting life.”
