What's missing in your life?

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

When the coronavirus pandemic first hit, I came to realise that I had taken many things for granted - a congregation at every Mass. The faithful could also expect a Mass waiting for them at every church and those who lived in urban areas could even pick and choose the time and place based on personal preference and convenience. But all that changed with the pandemic. Even when churches were reopened gradually, attending Mass was a privilege and a luxury because of the radical restriction of numbers and SOPs. I guess for all of us, the suspension of public Masses and closure of churches had helped us see what we had regularly taken for granted. We had received the Eucharist merely out of habit and could only appreciate its irreplaceable value when it was missing from our lives. Perhaps, God allowed this all to happen so that we might reevaluate the way in which we’ve been receiving the Eucharist.

This experience is not without precedent. There have been times throughout history when Christians were prohibited from worship. In the early centuries, attending Mass was not just a dangerous thing but life-threatening, not because there was a raging pandemic that threatened the safety and life of every congregant. Attending Mass could get you killed. In the Year 304, Christians of the northern African region of Abitinae gathered for Mass despite a prohibition on penalty of death. They were arrested and summarily sentenced to death. No one, neither old nor young, was spared. When confronted by the authorities about why they defied the Emperor, they replied, “Sine Dominico non possumus” – “Without Sunday, we cannot live.” Just like one cannot survive without food or oxygen, these Christians understood that they could not live without the Eucharist. They would risk everything, including their personal safety and lives, just to have a taste of the Bread from Heaven.

Can we live without the Eucharist? The pandemic has helped us become aware of how much we take the Eucharist for granted. When we do not eat, we grow weak and become sick. The lack of reception of the Eucharist makes us vulnerable to sin, we literally become spiritually dead. Without the Eucharist, we lose direction in life and we risk losing something far greater - eternal life, our immortal soul’s salvation.

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi was instituted in the 13th century to address this concern. It was a direct result of the private Eucharistic devotion and mystical experiences of a nun, St Juliana of Liège. When Juliana was 16, she had her first vision which recurred subsequently several times during her Eucharistic adoration. Her vision presented the moon in its full splendour, crossed diametrically by a dark stripe. This was not the dark patches that one can see on the moon surface on a clear night. It was something entirely different - unnatural.

The Lord made St Juliana understand the meaning of what had appeared to her. The moon symbolised the life of the Church on earth; the opaque line, on the other hand, represented the absence of a liturgical feast: namely, a feast in which believers would be able to adore the Eucharist so as to increase in faith, to advance in the practice of the virtues and to make reparation for offences to the Most Holy Sacrament. In other words, Juliana was shown what was significantly missing from the liturgical life of the Church.

When Pope Urban, who was personally acquainted to St Juliana, finally declared the Feast of Corpus Christi, he did so not because of any personal favour owed to this nun or because they both hailed from the same locality. Some questioned whether it was even necessary to add another feast since the Institution of the Eucharist is already celebrated on Holy Thursday.

But our Lord in the vision granted to St Juliana explained that: “Holy Thursday is more a day of sorrow than of joy,” since it coincided with Good Friday. Pope Benedict XVI also added that: “The Feast of Corpus Christi is inseparable from Holy Thursday, from the Mass in Caena Domini, in which the Institution of the Eucharist is solemnly celebrated. Whereas on the evening of Holy Thursday we relive the mystery of Christ who offers himself to us in the bread broken and the wine poured out.” But he adds, “on the day of Corpus Christi, this same mystery is proposed for the adoration and meditation of the People of God, and the Blessed Sacrament is carried in procession through the streets of the cities and villages, to show that the Risen Christ walks in our midst and guides us towards the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi allows the faithful to look at Our Eucharistic Lord with a greater sense of appreciation for the Blessed Sacrament and to tell the world: “this is exactly what you are missing in your lives!” That is why this celebration is marked by Eucharistic processions. These processions specifically are a reminder that we are to share the gift of the Eucharist with the world and make a bold proclamation of our belief in the Real Presence. We cannot control how other people react to Jesus but we can control how we respond to indifference, and our response should ultimately be one of charity. Public processions provide us with an opportunity to be a faithful witness to Christ in a world that has become indifferent or in some cases hostile towards Him. We are declaring to the world: “Without Sunday, without the Eucharist, we cannot live!”

In a world so obviously confused about the nature and purpose of human life, where so many sense something deeply missing and struggle to grasp at straw to fill that empty space, the sacred liturgy rightly celebrated is a most effective tool of evangelisation. In the sacred liturgy it is our Lord Himself who speaks to us and whose grace is at work in and through us, perfecting our nature and transforming it so that it might participate in the very life of God Himself. Thus, the Mass brings our Heavenly Lord down to earth but it also takes us up to Heaven. When the Mass is celebrated with reverence, love and devotion it truly becomes the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider beautifully describes the symbiotic relationship between the Church and the Eucharist: “The Eucharist is at the heart of the Church. When the heart is weak, the whole body is weak. So, when the practice around the Eucharist is weak, then the heart and the life of the Church is weak. And when people have no more supernatural vision of God in the Eucharist then they will start the worship of man, and then also doctrine will change to the desire of man.”

So, today, if you sense that there is something missing in your life, look no further - that something is a person: Jesus Christ. He comes to us in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood, to feed us when we are hungry, to quench our thirst when we are thirsty, to accompany us when we are lonely. He alone can fill the emptiness inside of us with joy, and by so doing, give our lives purpose and meaning.

Peace be with you

Second Sunday of Easter Year C (Divine Mercy Sunday)

Last week’s Gospel began with Mary Magdalene heading towards the tomb of Christ early in the morning on the first day of the week, “while it was still dark.” Nothing much has changed in a week. In fact, our Gospel for today seems to have been caught in a time loop. We are still on that “same day, the first day of the week.” Our liturgical perception of time during the season of Easter may have something to do with this. Eastertide may be made up of 50 days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday, but we have traditionally called this whole season “the great Sunday" as if it was a single event and a single day.

But it is not just the day which counts. It is now evening and darkness has descended on the whole city of Jerusalem and its surroundings. The imagery of darkness serves as a theological inclusion and conclusion for the events on Easter Sunday. The day begins in darkness and ends in darkness. The Light of the World has emerged in an everlasting dawn, but the world remains clueless and in the dark. The darkness signifies the absence of Christ and their own hopelessness. Despite news of the empty tomb and rumours of possible sightings of the Risen Lord, the disciples remained terrified of the authorities and the mob, and made sure the doors were closed, locked and secured.

Our Lord had already assured His disciples of His return: “I will come back to you” (John 14:28) and “you will see me” (John 16:16). But His seemingly tragic death seems to have erase any memory of these promises. Our Lord now fulfils these promises as He “came and stood among them.” The locked doors didn’t stop Jesus. Nothing could. Not the gates of Hades, nor the stone which enclosed the tomb and certainly not the four walls and shuttered windows and doors of the upper room.

Our Lord came and stood with them. He greeted them with a peace that only He alone could give and then, He gave them their mission: “As the Father sent me,” He said to them, “so am I sending you.” What did that mean? Our Lord is drawing His disciples into His own mission. Our Lord has spoken of Himself as the envoy of the Father, who has been sent to reveal the mystery of the Father and accomplish His saving work. Now, our Lord draws them into the circle - the Church’s mission is an extension of the work of the Father and the Son in the world. It is a mission of expiation of sin and reconciliation. They are not to remain trapped in that room. This is what happens when the Lord breathes His Spirit upon them while saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is John’s presentation of the Pentecost. By incorporating the disciples into His own mission, our Lord also gives them the authority to take away people’s sins, just as He is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

But the story does not end there. There is a missing link - Thomas. The next week, the disciples were in the same room, locked-in once more. Thomas hadn’t been there the first time. He alone had the courage to step outside that room. But his sense of great loss had impacted his faith which remained trapped in self-doubt and confusion. He had spent the week telling the others he’d never believe it until the Lord showed up and proved it was really Him. And so, at the end of the week, our Lord came again, and invited Thomas to touch and see the wounds in His hands and His side: the scars which proved His identity, the wounds that revealed His love.

If this story seems to be exclusively about the Eleven till this point, there is no doubt that what the Lord says next, is meant for all of us: “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.” This beatitude moves our attention to later generations of Christians, including us who are reading this story. We may not have encountered the Lord in the same way as the Eleven Apostles, we may not have seen Him first-hand but that does not make our faith in the Risen Lord any less genuine or valuable. Some come to believe in the Lord by seeing Him and by being able to touch Him. Others come to faith by listening to the Gospel. This is what St John intended as he wrote these closing words: “These are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing this you may have life through his name.”

Two thousand years have passed since that first Easter, but we are still united with the characters who were present at the tomb and in the upper room. This is because Easter is a promise and foretaste of eternity, of fullness of life that never ends. Ironically, we also seem to struggle with feelings of befuddlement and confusion, grappling with the experience of the seeming absence of God, especially during the long dark spiritual winter of this pandemic, just as the early Christians attempted to make sense of the empty tomb. Many of us are like the disciples in today’s Gospel, locked behind closed doors, initially because we were forced to do so by the authorities and their public health mandates but subsequently, it became a matter of personal choice, crippled by the fear of the dreaded enemy that could kill us or our loved ones. Although the lockdowns have now ended, many have continued to observe self-imposed quarantines.

During the height of this pandemic when our Churches were shuttered, Catholics could only hope to be sustained through spiritual communion and by tuning in on one among a vast array of online Masses. But virtual Mass is not an adequate substitute, given the incarnate nature of our faith: the real matter of the sacraments we receive, the sacramentality of our church buildings, and the faces of the people of God. We are an embodied people with an embodied faith, and God desires to feed us with the Eucharist, the physical Bread of Life. That reality can’t be replicated through a screen. Both Thomas and our Lord understood this and that explains the reason for Thomas’ demand to touch, and our Lord’s offer to be touched. For Thomas, seeing and touching the Lord in the flesh beats hearing about it virtually.

Today, our Lord declares once again to all: “Peace be with you.” With these words, our Lord is reminding us that there is no room for fear, distress, or self-pity for a community of believers in the Resurrection. Our Churches are reopened and our doors unlocked. It is now time for you to reopen the doors of your heart and believe once again, in the power of the Risen Lord. The dangers and risks of this virus has not magically disappeared, although with vaccinations and therapeutics, things have become more manageable. But again, life is fraught with dangers and risks. Faith is not throwing caution to the wind but helps us resist throwing in the towel to our fears. If you are willing to take this challenge, you would soon discover the wonders which the Resurrection can reveal to you. The Resurrection unmasks evil, heals broken hearts, vanquishes fear, and ignites a contagious hope that fills human hearts in the midst of adversities, sufferings, natural disasters, and pandemics. It bestows a strength that is far beyond the contingencies and consequences of any war, pestilence, tsunami, or any other natural or biological threat to the human family. Believe in His promise: “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”