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Homily
May 25, 2008 The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ (A) Fr. Jim Schmitmeyer St. Michael Church, Ripley, Ohio St. George Church, Georgetown, Ohio
Deut 8:2-3, 14-16 X 1 Cor 10:16-17 X John 6:51-58
Is not the cup we bless a sharing in the Blood of Christ? Is not the bread we break a sharing in the Body of Christ?
St. Paul puts it well. He “says it like it is.”
This is what happens inside this church today. This is what happens at this Mass… at each and every Mass.
Christ not only speaks to us, Christ becomes one with us.
That’s right.
During the course of the Mass we not only hear the words of Jesus, once spoken on the green hills of Palestine,
we actually become part of an event that occurred on a hill called Calvary.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we mystically enter that moment when God so loved the world… that the universe stopped!
And in the spilled blood of an innocent man the tight-grip of sin released;
and the strangle-hold of death gave way in the cry of Savior:
“Into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit! Into your hands I hand over my life.”
That, you see, is what happens inside this church: the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross breaks down the doors of time; breaks apart the walls of space…something “happens” here in our midst and that something is called Salvation.
The walls of time fall away and, for a brief moment, the world stands still as the powerful effect of Christ offering his life on the Cross for the salvation of the world rushes in like a driving wind!
Here, in this place and time.
This country, this county; here, in this week, in this year; in the life that is yours, in the life that is mine and this world that is ours.
in this act of worship that we render to the awesome God.
Here in this church we don’t just talk about the pretty eyes of a little boy born of woman named Mary long ago in Bethlehem;
we don’t just talk about the body of a prophet hungry and weary and racked with the temptation in the heat of the desert…
we don’t just talk about teachings of a wise teacher who preached to fisherman on the sea and to priests in the Temple.
No. we don’t just talk about Christ when we gather for Mass, we become one with Christ.
Here at this Mass we are changed and transformed by the deepest act of love that history has known.
We become one with Christ whose belly still aches in the bodies of the thousands of children who die each day of hunger.
We become one with Christ whose chest is knifed the dark alley of a big city.
We become one with Christ whose skin is pierced by shrapnel in Iraq.
We become “blood brothers” with the patient whose blood is thin with Coumadin.
We become “blood sisters” with the African mother whose blood runs thick with HIV.
Realize it or not, this is what happens here at Mass: we join our souls to Christ and offer our bodies with his on the Cross.
Why?
For the salvation of the world.
For the salvation of souls.
Why?
So that the wounded get bandaged and the hungry get fed.
So that evil be overcome and the world be made new.
So that humanity, once again, be made whole.
This is what happens at Mass. The sacrifice of Christ saves us anew.
No words can explain it.
But St. Paul comes close when he writes:
“This break we break, is not the Body of Christ? Is not the cup we drink, a sharing in his Blood?” © Fr. Jim Schmitmeyer
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