Homily orignally presented June 3, 2018

Those of you who have been Catholic for a while are at least somewhat familiar with the Stations of the Cross. From the very earliest days of the Church ...

 the faithful have meditated on 14 special moments in the Passion of Jesus.

Reflecting on these 14 Stations, that are based in Scripture and Tradition ...

     helps us to remember and commemorate Jesus’ Great act of Love for all of us.

We prayed the Stations of the Cross together here in Church on the Fridays of Lent   and you’re encouraged to meditate on them by yourselves all through the year ... as a way of deepening your appreciation for God’s Life-giving work of Redemption.

Well there’s another series of Stations that you can meditate on to help you

remember and commemorate another of God’s great acts of love for us.

These are the 12 Stations of ... the Holy Eucharist!

They’re relatively new, having been designed in the Jubilee Year of 2000 by the Poor Clare Nuns of Mother Angelica. They are beautifully displayed outdoors along a walking trail through a garden at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament located in Hanceville, Alabama approximately 45 minutes northeast of Birmingham.

How privileged and blessed we are to have a very beautiful Shrine for Our Lord here within our Diocese!

There, exposed in an 8-foot Monstrance is the Holy Eucharist ...

the true and substantial presence of Jesus veiled under the appearance of Bread

where from 6 AM to 6 PM the public can look upon Him to pray and adore.

And behind the altar, not visible to the public, ... where the Nuns rotate in 1-1/2 hour shifts spending time in prayer and adoration before the Sacramental Jesus!

So, Jesus is looked upon by the Nuns all throughout the day and night.

That’s the charism, or main focus of Mother Angelica’s order …

to adore and give thanks to God at all times.

To us Catholics, the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament is a very holy place.

But to the uninformed tourist, it is simply an exquisitely beautiful museum.

So, in order to get non-Catholics to begin to comprehend

what they will be seeing when they enter the Shrine ...

    the Nuns erected the 12 Stations of the Eucharist in the outside garden.

So, when visitors get dropped off from tour busses or park their cars, they can follow the path through the garden and read 12 Stations which describe the many Scriptural references that point to Jesus’ True Presence in the Holy Eucharist. 

Station 1 refers to the first book of the Bible, where in Genesis, Melchizedek, who is both a Priest and a King, offers praise & thanks to God by offering: bread & wine ... prefiguring what Jesus, who is both Priest and King, would do at the Last Supper.  

Station 2 refers to Exodus where the Israelite people are freed from slavery to Egypt by the blood of the unblemished male lamb, prefiguring how all people would be freed from slavery to sin by the blood of the unblemished male Lamb of God.

Station 3 recalls how God fed the Chosen People with Manna (miraculous bread from Heaven) to sustain them in the desert on their journey to the Promised Land, which prefigured how Jesus offers to feed us with Himself,

the True Bread from Heaven, in the Eucharist ... to sustain us on our journey

through the desert of this life ... to the Promised Land of Heaven.

Station 6 speaks of Jesus’ birth Bethlehem, a name which means “House of bread.”

Station 9 presents Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse from John Chapter 6 ...

where He clearly says that we must feed on Him in order to have Eternal Life.

Station 10 is the account of the Last Supper that we read in the Gospel today where Jesus finally reveals how we’re able to feed on His flesh and drink His blood … that it will be in a Holy Meal, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!

These are a few of the 12 Stations of the Eucharist. They are wonderfully done. They remind us that the Source and Summit of our faith is Jesus ...

    And that He is truly and substantially present with us in the Holy Eucharist.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist? You know from time to time polls will come out that show that only a percentage of Catholics really believe in the True Presence of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion.

I’ve heard of polls taken in this country that indicate that less than 50% of the Catholic people really believe in the Eucharist … that it’s really Jesus!

How would you respond to such a poll?

Today is the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. The Church established this feast to heighten our appreciation for the privilege and blessing that we have ... in having Jesus truly present to us ... in the Holy Eucharist.

You know, there’s no scientist in the world that can prove that Jesus is really there in the Eucharist. Even Albert Einstein, the master physicist of the 20^th Century ...

who developed the amazing Theory of Relativity ...  couldn’t do it.

Before he died, he asked a Catholic Chaplain to give him

all the books that were available on Transubstantiation

because he wanted to know how the bread and wine became Jesus.

Transubstantiation is the big word that defines the miracle whereby Bread and Wine are miraculously changed to become the Body and Blood of Christ.

Einstein couldn’t explain it then ... and science can’t explain it now!

That’s because it’s a miracle. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas called

Transubstantiation ... the “Greatest Miracle in the world”!

What makes it the greatest miracle? Well, if we believe that God is infinite and we also believe that Jesus is fully present under the appearance of Bread and Wine, then what we’re really saying is that our infinite God is fully present under the finite substances of bread and wine!     That is a miracle and a great mystery!

St. Thomas Aquinas marveled, “The finite is capable of holding the infinite!”

That’s why He called it ...  the “Greatest Miracle in the world”!

But still we wonder, “How can that be? How can the infinite be contained in the finite?”

Well, maybe this will help. We believe in Christmas ... that Jesus was born as a human person some 2000 years ago. And if we do, then we’re admitting that

the infinite God was capable of being contained in the finite Human Person!

So how is that any different from ...

the infinite God containing Himself in the finite Host or the finite Cup of Wine?

If we believe in the Incarnation, God becoming man, then

why can’t we believe in Transubstantiation, God becoming our food and drink?

In our First Reading, from the Book of Exodus, we heard how Moses sealed God’s original covenant with the Chosen People ... it was by offering the sacrificed lambs to God ... and sprinkling the blood of the lambs on the people.

The author in our Second Reading from Hebrews then points out that the blood of the Son of God is so much more efficacious than the blood of animals. He says, “Christ came ... not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant.”

And in our Gospel today from Mark, Jesus reveals that He is going to stay with us and nourish us with His very own body and blood. At the Last Supper, He took the bread, said the blessing and said to the Apostles, “Take and eat. This is my body.”

Then he took the cup filled with wine, said the blessing and said to the Apostles, “(Take and drink,) this is my blood of the covenant.” 

At that moment Jesus replaced the old covenant of Moses ...

with the new and everlasting Covenant of Jesus.

In our Responsorial Psalm ... we just prayed 5 times:

“I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.”

Yes, in Holy Communion we have a most intimate encounter with Jesus.

It couldn’t be more intimate

for the Jesus of Bethlehem and the Jesus of Calvary

 comes right into our bodies.

Unlike the blood of the Old Covenant that Moses sprinkled on the people ...

Jesus offers The Blood of the New Covenant to be taken in by His people.

Notice the image of the Pelican on our main altar. It’s not there for nice decoration; it has real meaning. You see, in the absence of food, the mother pelican will feed her babies with her own flesh! What a radical demonstration of care and concern.

The same thing is true of our God. In His radical care and concern for us ...

He is pleased to feed us during our earthly lives ... with His own flesh. 

What a privilege! What a gift!

We get to receive God … the infinite comes to dwell in the finite.

After the Priest prays the Prayer of Consecration, Jesus is fully and substantially present under both the Bread and the Wine on the altar.

So no matter which one we consume, we receive the whole Jesus.

The beauty of receiving both species is that it more fully represents what took place at the Last Supper where Jesus gave Himself to the Apostles under the appearance of both Bread & Wine.

Do you believe in the True Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist?

He’s really there, Jesus, our Lord, Our Savior, our Brother and our Friend.

As you come forward to receive Holy Communion, hear Jesus say to you, “It is I.”

Recognize that it’s really Him in Holy Communion,  that The Creator comes to the Creature. Jesus comes to love us, to heal us, to transform us and to strengthen us.

Jesus is there in the Bread each time the Priest says the words, “This is my Body.”

Jesus is there in the Wine each time the Priest says the words, “This is my Blood.”

Yesterday at the Cathedral of St. Paul, Bishop Baker ordained two new Priests!

Fr. Jonathan Howell and Fr. Matthew Bartow now have the power to feed the people with Jesus ,,, the Bread of Life!

Let’s treasure the food we’ve been given.

God nourishes us to Eternal Life when He gives us Himself, the Bread of Life.

Let’s give thanks and praise to God for performing

the Greatest Miracle in the world …

for feeding us with the Most Holy Body and Blood of His Son,

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!