HOMILY—The Mysteries: The Eucharist IV

In my homilies on The Mysteries the past three Sundays, I looked at some crucial aspects of the great mystery of the Eucharist, such as the doctrine of transubstantiation, as well as the reality, which surrounds the Eucharist. In light of this incredibly awesome mystery, I’d like to talk today about how this should prompt each one of us to physically respond to an encounter with the Almighty Majesty of Christ Our Glorious King surrounded by His whole heavenly court, but veiled from our eyes by a humble piece of bread.

So, first of all, let’s go back to Thomas Aquinas. He wrote that the Real Presence, “the whole Christ is present under every part or quantity of each species. As a loaf of bread is bread, and a slice of bread is bread, and a crumb of bread is bread, so, the Eucharistic species, in whatever quantity, is Christ.”[1] Consequently, if we profess to the true teaching of the Church, we know that Christ is present whole and entire, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in each host, as well as in every fragment of a host and in each drop of the Precious Blood, no matter how small. Awareness of this fact should, therefore, impel us to give due reverence and homage to even the smallest fragment of the Sacred Host or smallest drop of the Precious Blood because Christ is present there in His entirety. The question we need to ask, is whether this is what is in reality happening.

We call the Eucharist a mystery because it is a reality that is beyond the physical properties of our physical world. But one of the best analogies that I ever heard to describe this reality actually comes quite close to describing this truth of Christ’s presence in the smallest crumb of the host or drop of the Precious Blood. First of all, picture how, when you look into a mirror, you see your entire face. If, however, you should accidentally drop the mirror, so that it breaks into many pieces and then look down at them on the floor, the image of your face wouldn’t be divided up between the different fragments of glass. You wouldn’t see your right eye in one piece and your left eye in another, and your mouth in another. Instead, when you would look down at the pieces of the broken mirror, you see your entire face in each fragment, no matter how small. In a similar manner, this is very much how we are to understand the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species of bread and wine.

Already in the early centuries of the Church, “the Fathers of the Church showed the greatest concern to prevent even the smallest piece of Eucharistic bread from being lost, as St. Cyril of Jerusalem exhorted with highly suggestive words: ‘Be careful not to lose any part of the Lord's body. Should you drop anything, it would be as though you had severed a limb from your own body. Pray, tell me, if anyone were to give you gold beads, would you not keep them with the greatest care so as not to lose any of them? Should you not be more careful and vigilant to prevent even the smallest crumb of the Lord's body from falling to the floor, this being far more precious than gems and gold?’ … As early as the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Tertullian voiced the great anguish and concern of the Church to prevent any fragment of bread from being lost: ‘We are exceedingly worried to avoid dropping the smallest crumb of bread or spilling the smallest drop of wine.’ ”[2]

John Paul II noted in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia that “in the wake of this great sense of mystery it becomes clear how the Church's faith in the Eucharistic mystery has found expression, through the centuries, not only in the exhortation to an attitude of inner devotion, but also in a series of outer gestures.” Many of these “outer gestures” were very strictly proscribed in the rubrics for the Traditional Mass but in the wake of the post-Vatican II reforms a casualness has invaded the Mass, which in turn is reflected in how the Eucharist, i.e., Christ’s Body, itself is treated.

You have all noticed that the manner in which I offer the Holy Sacrifice is highly stylized and strongly reminiscent of the Traditional Mass. And several people have asked me why I hold my fingers like this during Mass. Those of you old enough to remember the Traditional Mass perhaps know that it is one of the ways that the priest shows his reverence for the Sacred Species. Watch carefully. During the first part of the Mass, I hold my hands with fingers extended. Then, from the moment of the consecration of the bread, I firmly hold together the two fingers that touched the Sacred Host. It is a mark of reverence but it is also something done for very practical reasons. The ritual of the Mass used to require that priests do this because small particles of the host would sometimes adhere to the fingers and so, to assure that they would not fall off, the priest closely clasped these fingers together to safeguard them.

You might have thought that some things, which I do during the course of the Mass, are just part of the ritual as we in the Canons Regular do it. And I’m certain that there are others, which you probably don’t even notice. But none of these things are done just for the sake of ritual. Each of them has a very specific purpose—the protection of the Sacred Species from desecration. Take note of how I wipe these two fingers on the corporal, that square linen cloth under the chalice, just before the consecration so that they will be free of dust and skin oil when picking up the host. Take note of how each time after touching the consecrated Host, I rub my fingers together over the chalice to dislodge any particles that may have adhered to them. Take note of how, after I receive the Sacred Host, I carefully brush off any fragments that are left on the paten into the chalice. This is also why the sacred vessels have a highly polished gold surface, so as to better see small particles remaining on them. Take note, that after distribution of Communion, I also brush off any fragments from the patens, which the servers hold under your chins precisely to catch the host or any particles, which may fall during distribution of Communion. Then, the server carefully pours water over my fingers, in order to wash any particles off of them into the chalice, so that as I drink the water, I consume these particles rather than let them fall off onto the altar or floor. Each of the sacred vessels is meticulously purified, so that no particles of the Host or droplets of the Precious Blood remain. This isn’t pedantry. It’s reverence for something sacred.

How many of you have considered the fact that even the smallest particle of the Host is Christ Himself and that because of the casual manner in which many people presently receive Communion, these fragments are falling onto the floor and people are trampling the Real Presence underfoot? Yes. In many churches today, Christ is laying all around on the floor and people don’t even realize it. Then the cleaners come in, vacuum up these particles, which are as much the Eucharist as the whole Host, and then dump them into the trash bin. It’s therefore, no surprise that in some sectors of the Church there is discussion about returning to the age-old practice of Communion only on the tongue.

In the past, certain people have thought that some parts of the traditional ritual of the Mass were a bit too picky and obsessive. To the contrary! Is not the Real Presence “far more precious than gems and gold,” as the Fathers of the Church once wrote? Or perhaps, such people don’t really believe in the Church’s teaching on the Real Presence or the necessity to show proper reverence to Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Highlighting the necessity of outer expressions of respect for the Eucharist, John Paul II once wrote: “Although the banquet connotes the idea of familiarity, the Church has never given in to the temptation of banalizing this 'familiarity' with her Bridegroom, forgetting that He is also her Lord . . . The Eucharistic banquet is a real sacred banquet where underlying the simplicity of signs is God's unfathomable holiness. The bread broken on our altars is the angels' bread, which we can only approach with the centurion's humility.”[3]

The most frequent warning of the Fathers of the Church about the proper attitude towards Holy Communion was expressed thus: "Cum amore et timore!"—“With love and awe!”[4] Our attitude should be no different. As Benedict XVI wrote: “Receiving the Eucharist involves an attitude of worship towards the One we receive.”[5] Each of us needs to ask, is this attitude of worship, this attitude of “love and awe” reflected in the manner in which I receive the Lord.

27 April 2008                                                                                                                       Hom-Myst-EuchIV

St. Peter’s in Volo (6:00 p.m., 8:00 & 10:00 a.m.)