HOMILY FOR FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI (A)

Fr Billy Swan

Dear friends. A question that I often get asked these days is an important one: do I have to go to Mass every Sunday? Can I still be a Christian and only go at Christmas, at Easter or the odd wedding and funeral? On this feast of Corpus Christi I welcome the opportunity to answer it. First though, it is important to be clear about a few things.

First, when the Church asks us to participate in the Mass, this is not a rule that she herself has made up. Rather it goes back to the Last Supper when, on the night before he died, Jesus asked us to ‘Do this in memory of me’. The impact of these words on the first Christians was profound. They responded to the Lord’s invitation to ‘do this in memory of me’ by meeting every Sunday, which was the day of his resurrection, to pray and to ‘break the bread’. For the early Church, the Mass was the glue that knit them together as a community united as the body of Christ often in a hostile world. It was there that the memory of Jesus and his teachings were kept alive and where there was the strong faith that every time they celebrated the Mass, Jesus himself was really present among them. In the words of an early Church saint: ‘Without fear of any kind we have celebrated the Lord's Supper, because it cannot be missed; that is our law. We cannot live without the Lord's Supper’ (Acts of African Martyrs).

Here in Ireland, the Mass played a central role in the preservation of the faith at times of persecution. The country in dotted with Mass rocks which testify to the sacrifices that our ancestors made in order to celebrate the Mass, often under the shadow of persecution and the threat of death. Here in Wexford, at Tomhaggard in the south of the county, the people of the parish gathered with their parish priest Fr. Nicholas Mayler to celebrate the Eucharist on Christmas morning in the year 1653. They were discovered by Cromwell’s soldiers and Fr Mayler along with several of his parishioners, were shot dead. Today, every Christmas morning, Mass is celebrated on the same Mass rock using the same chalice used by Fr. Mayler at the Mass when he was killed.

On a personal note, I recall the memory of Fr. Ragheed Ganni, a priest from Iraq with whom I lived at the Irish College in Rome. He had just celebrated Mass with his people on Trinity Sunday when he too was murdered by terrorists. Seven months before his death, he spoke in Italy at a conference on the Eucharist. On that occasion, he said that ‘for us Christians in Iraq, the terrorists take life but the Eucharist gives it back’. He also shared that there were times in his life when ‘I would wake up filled with fear. But when I held the host at Mass, I had the strength to know that it was not I who was holding him but it was He who was holding me’.

So what then of us, what of today? We do not put our lives at risk by coming here to Mass like our ancestors of the past but we are connected to them in keeping the Lord’s memory alive. For them, they went to the Eucharist not because they had to but because they wanted to. There could only have been a great love and devotion that burned in their hearts: a conviction that the Eucharist was truly the place where they met God and tasted the divine.

This love of the heart for the Eucharist is expressed in some beautiful prayers of the Mass in the Irish language: ‘Mo ghrádh, Thu O Iosa! Céad mile fáilte romhat, a ghrádh ghil mo chroidhe ‘stigh!...You are my love O Jesus! A hundred thousand welcomes before you O Lord! A hundred thousand welcomes before you O bright love of my heart within!’ These are prayers that captured the great affection by the people for the Mass and what they received there.

For us today, there is an urgent need to recover this sense of the Eucharist being an experience of divine love: where God’s love in Christ is received and shared. We all can be distracted at Mass with a thousand thoughts running through our heads. But if we come to the Eucharist with love in our hearts wishing only to offer our lives to God in thanksgiving, then miracles can happen. The Mass is the place where God gathers us, feeds us, teaches us, forgives us, blesses us, loves us and sends us: if only we appreciate this then would come to understand the words of Jesus in the Gospel today ‘if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life within you’. Because without this love for the Eucharist and without the love of God, sooner or later we will fall away. In the future, we will come to the Eucharist because we love it or we will not come at all.

A final word about culture. Years ago, many of us went to Mass because everyone went. If you didn’t go you were afraid to be the odd one out. This was the culture that supported the practice of faith. That culture has changed dramatically over the past 30 years or so, leading to a large drop in the numbers of those who participate in Sunday Mass. Where before, Saturday evening or Sunday morning was free so that people could attend Mass, now there are many choices and many things on. In the past, everything revolved around Mass times. Now Mass revolves around, sport, entertainment and other events or options that people choose. Most of the people I know who no longer go to Mass, stay away not because of scandals or bad liturgy. They don’t go because they have lost the habit and discipline of it. Today I ask you to join with me in creating a culture that supports the setting aside of one hour per week on Saturday evening or Sunday morning for the worship of God in the Eucharist. Make that decision. Together we can change the present culture that thinks it is ok to miss Mass for any flimsy reason.

But don’t go only because you have to but because you want to. Go because it is there that you become part of the mystery of God’s love shared and received until we can say with those early Church saints ‘without the Eucharist we cannot live’. I conclude with beautiful words about the Eucharist written by Mother Theresa of Calcutta: ‘Your life must be woven around the Eucharist. Direct your eyes to him, who is the light; bring your hearts close to his heart; ask him for the grace to know him, for the charity to love him, for the courage to serve him. Seek him longingly. Amen.’