Corpus Christi

 SAINT FRANCIS: “Love is not loved!”

Eucharist - Mass - is the most important thing that we do. All our life is meant to be engaged in what happens at Mass. Everything we do and are should flow from the Mass, and everything we do and are should lead back to the Mass and be something we can offer to God in the Mass. Ultimately we human beings are created to worship God or worship something else. Whatever our lives are centered around is what we worship. May it be LOVE that we in fact love, and nothing less than that.

As we heard in the 1st and 2nd reading today, worship was messy in the old testament: blood everywhere. smelly animal. blood. roasted flesh (grilled meat). Lots going on. Lot of work for us. Nowadays, not so messy. Today’s ordination Mass anointing is the messiest it gets. Sacred Chrism on the palms of the hands of the priests which are meant to “offer sacrifice to God and to bless His people” as the prayer says.

In the Gospel today we see that Jesus prepares the Passover for us. Unlike the OT, now God has done all the work, and we only have to cooperate with it. No longer a bloody sacrifice, but the fulfillment of what it foreshadowed, we have to come, with our full selves, and offer that sacrifice that no one else can: our heart and soul. The priest, in the person of Jesus, does the rest. He takes our gifts, brings them to the father.

St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata - In the cross you see how much Jesus loved you in the past. In the Eucharist you see how much Jesus loves you now.

HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THAT LOVE?

In Sinu Iesu - visits to the blessed Sacrament.
I want to visit to the blessed sacrament to become once again a part of ordinary catholic life, and instinct of the believing heart, an expression of gratitude in reparation to me who am forsaken and spurned in so many places. Let my priests set the example and the faithful will follow it.
The priest who approaches me and remains with me in the sacrament of my love is not losing his time; he is at the very source of every good thing, and I will bless his priesthood with a wonderful apostolic fruitfulness. This was the secret of so many of my saints.

sign of cross passing a church. short prayer to Jesus: O Sacrament most holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving, be every moment Thine.
Notice this prayer speaks to the Eucharist as a person.