With these words, Jesus expressed to His apostles and to
us the totality of His love. A love so deep that He would go from town to town
with little rest and little food, preaching and healing and teaching with such
passion that many called Him crazy.
His was a body that was beautiful if just by the reality
that He received it from Mary, our pure and beautiful Mother. The purity and
innocence of His body would make the suffering all the greater; His hands
pierced, His heart struck through with a lance—the Passover lamb, slain.
But He would rise in glory. And when Thomas doubted that
Jesus could still be seen—and not just seen, but touched—Thomas demanded to do
precisely that. And he did: his hand entering into the very body of Jesus
Christ.
Thomas, this is my
body… given up for you.
This would happen again, when the two disciples were
walking to Emmaus. They encountered the risen Lord and they begged Him to stay
with them. (Ask and you shall receive!) So, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke
it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened. And at that very moment,
Jesus disappeared—or, so they thought. In their hands was no longer bread, but
Jesus. His flesh had become true food. He had answered their prayer. Such that
they not only could touch, but taste.
This is my body,
given up for you.
* * *
As a priest, I hear these words every day. I say
them every day. They are the deepest, most profound words that will ever pass
my lips. They challenge me because Jesus doesn’t just love me with His lips; He
doesn’t just love me with His heart; He loves me with His entire life—even unto
death. And I, a priest, called to be another Christ, must do the same: to love
not just with my words, but with my life. Often when I am at the altar, I ask
the Lord to help me to love as He loved. Because I know my life does not
clearly resemble and radiate the love that Jesus has for all of us.
I realize that I
need transformation.
* * *
In the Second World War, Gereon Goldmann was not yet a
priest. He was a German who had been conscripted to fight for the Nazis. He was
Catholic and entered the army anyway, seeing it as a chance to evangelize from
the inside out. (Now that’s gutsy!) He never fired his gun. He was a medic.
During the battle for Mussina on the island of Sicily, Gereon
saw his German brothers being slaughtered near a bridge. Knowing that many were
Catholic, he went to a local Church, obtained the Eucharist, and ran down to
the bridge. In order to reach his brothers, he would have to cross the bridge—a
bridge fortified by allied machine guns. Gereon pulled out his flag with the red
cross on it—the sign of being a medic—and began waving it as he started to
cross the bridge. But it wasn’t seen and he was shot at. He evaded being hit
and eventually his flag was seen and the firing stopped. He ran to his Catholic
brothers and started to give them viaticum: Jesus, visiting them at the hour of
their death.
Jesus literally saying, Whoever eats my flesh will have eternal life! Eternal life, even in
the midst of the darkness of World War II.
His time was short and when the Allies made an offensive,
Gereon jumped into the sea to evade escape. But his love for the Eucharist was
so great that as he swam hidden underwater, he kept the pyx and the Eucharist
in his hand, keeping both above water. So all you would have seen was the hand
and the Eucharist floating on the water.
* * *
I don’t know about you, but that fires me up. I mean,
here I am, so slow to love. So slow to be transformed. I think about this story
or about our Catholic brothers and sisters who are being slaughtered in the
Middle East and who are literally dying to receive the Eucharist—and I’m slow
to get up and quick to leave? If I am honest, I must ask myself: what am I
doing here? Where is my heart?
* * *
I think of a brother priest who works in a village in Nigeria.
He would offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and was impressed by the devotion
of the people. At one of the Holy Masses, he was giving out Holy Communion.
“The Body of Christ, The Body of Christ,…”—the people saying Amen like Mary
said her Fiat.
But just as the priest was about to give the Eucharist to
another man, a bunch of parishioners ran up and tackled the man. A pile of
bodies were on top of him. As the man’s head emerged from under the pile, one
of the women shouted at him: “You need to go to confession before you receive
the Lord!”
The man, apparently, had been out drinking the night
before and messing around with some of the women. And he was married.
The parishioners loved not only the Lord, but also the
man. They wanted Him to be reconciled so that he wouldn’t take for granted such
a great gift and, in taking it for granted, ruin his life further. They wanted
transformation for him and they were willing to give up their comfortable,
pew-sitting body to run up and tackle him.
This is my body,
given up for you.
I want people to be just as concerned for the Eucharist
and for each other as they were. I want to someday see a Knight of Columbus
draw his sword and remind a lukewarm soul of the deeper realities that are here
present. The edge of the lance just close enough to the soul’s heart to remind
them of the lance in Jesus’ Sacred Heart.
Because this is a call for a deeper love. A deeper
transformation. That our lives, our bodies, our everything may be congruous, united, and transformed in the Body of
Christ which we not only receive but which we proclaim that we are to be as one
Body which is the Church!
* * *
So I have two words: Bruce Jenner. (Yes, I’m going there)
Why was this the most searched item on Google this week?
(If you don’t know the story, it is about a man who is being praised for
surgically changing his body to mostly look like a woman—and he is being hailed
as a kind of hero. ESPN is giving him a courage award).
What is the Catholic response to such things?
I do not condemn Bruce. We do not condemn. We love. And
because we love, we see something that I know most people did not see. If you
look at the Vanity Fair cover, you will notice that Bruce’s hands are hidden.
They are behind him; it almost looks as though they are tied. It is an “Ecce
Homo” moment—Latin for “Behold, the man.”
It gave me pause. I was reminded of Jesus who was
similarly paraded. I realize that I could have been angry, I could have been
posting angry stuff on facebook. But then I would have been just like the crowd
shouting “Crucify Him! Crucify Him.” And I know better than that.
So I paused. And I looked closer.
It was here that I saw. I saw Jesus coming to
Bruce—Bruce’s hands tied, sitting awkwardly on that chair—I saw Jesus coming to
Him and untying his hands and Jesus pointing to His Sacred Heart saying: Bruce,
this is my body, given up for you. Here is my love. Here is my life. Here is
the transformation that you really want. Here is where your healing will begin.
Take this… this is where you will find glory.
All along, Bruce was saying “This is not my body, this is
not my body.” And he thought that transformation and healing was only possible
by altering his body through surgery, hormones, and Photoshop. And there is
Jesus saying, “This is my body.”
Vanity Fair—vanity
fair—made a spectacle of it all: “Look, this is his body! This is his body!”
And, in vanity, people bought the lie that transformation
happens by things such as this, instead of by the Body of Christ.
* * *
This whole thing revealed to me that all of us—individually
and as a community—all of us need transformation.
Like Bruce, we are so often tied up by the world which is
so, so confused and confusing. We mutilate our lives and even our bodies in the
hopes that this—this!—will bring us
happiness. We add layer upon artificial layer of plastic, material goods that
we think will solve the nagging problem in our hearts. We busy ourselves and
run fast-paced into the great nothingness of a “comfortable life.” And so often
at the end of our life, we have no idea who we are and where we are…. and we
die and are painted up and laid in our casket.
In a way, to the extent that we have not been transformed
into Jesus, we are Bruce Jenner.
* * *
We need transformation. Because we need to be Christ. Not
Bruce Jenner or Caitlyn Jenner or whoever we say we are. We need to become
another Christ. All of us. And that means transformation.
That transformation begins here.
It begins when you receive. Your AMEN tells us how much
you want Jesus’ offer of transformation. And let’s be honest: the mumbled Amen,
the slouched shoulders, and the quick departure to whatever is next reveals to
all of us that there is an epidemic of disbelief.
Therefore, before you receive, I want you to place
yourself on this altar. The place of sacrifice. Spiritually place yourself and
anyone in your world who needs transformation. And ask the Lord, when he sends the
Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into Jesus, that he might transform
you and all whom you put on the altar as well. And He will. That’s a guarantee.
And second: I want you to start visiting and become more
committed to visiting our Lord in the Adoration Chapel. We struggle with doubt “out
there” because we live doubt in here. Visiting our Lord during the week must
become part of our life and not simply an accessory to Sunday.
How many people come to me saying they have had a bad day
or they can’t put the day to rest and how it affects their home life. I ask
them, do you make a visit to the chapel after work?
Place all that burdens you at the feet of the Lord. Place
your work, place your children, place our world—place it all at His feet and
give it to Him. “Lord, it is yours. I give it to you.” It’s his work anyway,
his children, his world. Give it back and then go home in peace. Finally at
peace! You will be transformed!
* * *
So, let’s pray.
Father, thank you. Thank you for your Son in the
Eucharist. Jesus, I believe that you are here and that you see me and hear me
and love me. I pray that I have preached well of you and for you. Please
transform me. So that as you give me your Body, I may in return say, Lord, this
is my body, I give it to you.
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