Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ
Cycle B
June 7,
2015 9:30 and 11:00 am
Saint Margaret Parish, Bel
Air
A Postal Clerk and A Mother
About a
year ago, the mother of an American serviceman baked some homemade cookies for
her son
She
made chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin and macadamia nut – all homemade, all
her son’s favorites. Then she carefully
wrapped each cookie in plastic and placed them in Ziploc bags.
Finally,
she placed them in a box and sealed it.
She attached the customs declaration form and brought the box to the
post office.
The
destination: Afghanistan. The postal
clerk pointed to a section of the form that the mother had left blank.
It
said: “If Non-deliverable: Check: Abandon,
Return, or Redirect.” The clerk
recognized fear in this woman’s eyes.
“If Non-Deliverable” – that phrase was unthinkable. The mother just stared, frozen in place.
Then
the clerk quietly said, “My son’s in the
military too – I understand. You can
check ‘Redirect’ and then write ‘Chaplain to redistribute.’”
She
then helped this mother to complete the customs form. The other mom just nodded and thanked her.
And in
that moment, it was no longer a postal clerk waiting on a customer. It was two mothers bound by anxious,
heart-rending love for their sons.
A Police Officer and A Teen
This
past week, CNN carried a story about a very recent occurrence in Texas.
A
mother and father were killed in an automobile accident. A police officer on the scene was charged
with going to their home to notify the next of kin.
This
officer found an eighteen-year-old teenager at the home, the youngest of five
children and the only one still living at home.
The officer had to tell him that both of his parents had been killed.
After a
while and in the midst of tears, the boy told the officer that he was going to
graduate from high school in the next week.
He explained how proud his parents were of him and as he cried, he said
that that he didn’t think he could go through the graduation.
That
police officer promised this young man that he would have his back. And he did.
The
officer was there for the teen’s graduation.
The two of them embraced as the teen left the stage after receiving his
diploma.
And at
that moment, it was no longer a police officer relating to the son of accident
victims. It was a father treating this
kid as his own son.
The What and the How
I see
these two recent stories as expressing what the Eucharist is all about.
We
believe that the bread and wine here at Mass become the body and blood of
Christ. In other words, Jesus is present
here and comes to us.
We also
believe that this sacramental body of Christ is to make us the living body of
Christ. One of our Catholic writers has
an excellent insight on this.
He
says, “We are called to be Jesus’ Body in
the world but not his Blood. The Body of
Christ is what we are to become; drinking deeply of the cup is how
we are to become it, by pouring ourselves out for others.”
What a
great insight! This sacramental food
transforms us, little by little, into the living body of Christ.
That’s what
we are to become. And we to become this
by drinking the cup, as that author says.
In
other words, this happens by pouring out ourselves for one another as Jesus
pours out his blood on the cross. That’s
the how.
Awakens and Empowers
That
postal clerk and that police officer did exactly this.
Whether
they were conscious of it or not, they were the living body of Christ. And they did this by pouring out themselves
for that mother and that teen.
We are
to allow the Eucharist to awaken in us the oneness with humanity that is
already there. We are to allow it to
empower us to transcend any barriers and live the bond that God has created.
In this
way, the body of Christ makes us what we are meant to be. The blood of Christ is how we become
this, each in our own life situation.
This is
what the Eucharist is all about. This is
what we celebrate on this special day in honor of the Body and Blood of Christ.
