We kind of mentioned last week that when God spoke, God's Word is all-powerful.
When God spoke to nothing, nothing became something. We call that creation.
When God's Word accomplishes what it says, when God spoke to the man who was deaf,
he said, Ephrathah, be opened, and his ears were opened. He could hear.
Well, today, the Feast of Corpus Christi, we celebrate that Jesus Christ said to bread,
this is my body, and it became his body. We say Jesus Christ gave us the gift of
himself in the Holy Eucharist. Not a symbol, but the reality of himself.
Amen.
Amen.
And at every Mass, as at the Last Supper, we say something becomes someone.
St. Thomas Aquinas calls it transubstantiation.
Something becomes someone. Bread becomes the sacred heart of Jesus.
And they say to those you love, you give yourself.
It's true in marriage. It's true. God is love. God should know.
To those you love, you give yourself. And there are three dimensions to love.
And the easy way to remember the three dimensions to love is UPS.
It's union, presence, and sacrifice. Those are the three dimensions to love.
Love seeks union with the beloved. It's true in marriage. A husband and wife become one.
Love seeks union with the beloved. It's also true in the church.
We seek union in the mind of Christ, which is truth, and the life of Christ, which is grace.
Love seeks union with the beloved.
And the second aspect of love is presence. Love seeks to be in the presence of the one we love.
We've got a mother and her child, a couple engaged to be married.
Usually add a man and his child.
truck okay just to be in the presence of the one we love okay like once couple spent 60 years
together in marriage he developed a brain tumor and his wife spent months taking care of him
at home and on the day he died his wife said I asked God for one more day and God said no
just to be in the presence of the one we love okay it's like it's never long enough we're
wired for eternity okay so just to be in the presence of the one we love third dimension of
love is sacrifice mother Teresa says sacrifice is the language of love it's the way we express love
when mother Teresa would visit a village a child brought her
a small bag with sugar and he said that was the sugar that he had saved the entire year
and she said that there was much love in the sacrifice and those are the three dimensions
to love and those are the three dimensions the Holy Eucharist like sacrament sacrifice
and presence okay like union presence and sacrifice love seeks union with the beloved
well
we have the sacrament of Holy Communion okay divine love incarnate seeks union with us Holy
Communion is the sacrament of union with God in Holy Communion they say we are as close to him as
we are to ourselves okay we are as close to him as we are to ourselves okay presence is the second
dimension that's the real presence okay Jesus is present 24 hours a day in the presence of the one
Jesus is present 24 hours a day in the presence of the one
seven days a week 365 days a year in the church okay because love seeks to be in the presence of
the one he loves he's present in the tabernacle where he waits for us to be in our presence okay
the third dimension is sacrifice
on the cross Jesus offers himself as the perfect sacrifice we say that the crucifix is the yardstick
against which all love is measured.
On the cross, Christ gave his life for his bride, the church.
So Jesus shows us the depth of God's love for us on the cross,
but in the holy sacrifice of the Mass,
the sacrifice of Calvary is renewed.
At every Mass, Calvary is given a new location in time and space.
Christ's willingness to die for each one of us
is made present in the sacrifice of the Mass.
Sacraments, sacrifice, and presence.
One convert to this church speaking about Holy Communion said,
I consumed him and he consumed me.
I consumed him, he consumed me.
When we eat food, that food is taken up into our bodies.
It's assimilated into us.
Actually, it becomes my body and my blood.
Well, when I consume him, he consumes me.
The lesser is taken up into the greater.
I am assimilated more fully into his divine life,
into the mystical body of Christ,
into his life of grace, humility, patience, charity, meekness.
We are incorporated, like we say, most fully into his body.
Okay.
The real presence, a poor Clare Nunn was asked,
what do you do in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament?
You spend all these hours before the tabernacle.
What do you do?
And her response was,
what does a poor man do in the presence of one who is rich?
What does a sick man do in the presence of his physician?
What does a thirsty man do in the presence of a fountain?
What is the occupation of one who is,
is hungry, is starving, and is placed before a banquet?
And a story about Christ's real presence.
A woman was in adoration at an all-night vigil,
and she realized she was the only one in the whole church.
She asked our Lord, well, why isn't this church full?
Why am I the only one here?
And she received the response from our Lord,
you are the only one.
You are the only one to whom I gave the grace to be here.
It's a grace to be here.
God wants to unite our amen,
us to unite our amen to his amen.
Like one deacon says that,
you and I are not here to be masked at.
We're not here to be masked at.
We're here to be taken up,
to be drawn into heaven, into his amen.
Like we say, on the cross,
Jesus offers the perfect amen to the will of the Father.
And at Mass, we unite our amen to his amen,
our yes to his yes.
But it's Holy Communion that empowers us.
In Holy Communion, we feed on his self-giving love
that we might be taken up more fully into his life of charity.
We say, we're not here to be masked at,
but to celebrate Corpus Christi,
to enter into the mystery,
of self-sacrificing love.
So on the Feast of Corpus Christi,
we pray that we might grow in our knowledge,
our love, and our devotion
to the mystery of the Eucharist
as sacrament, sacrifice, and presence.