Homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi (B)

I had the great good fortune of growing up in a family that took meals and food seriously. Pretty much everyone in the family, both men and women, have considerable ability in the kitchen and all our family gatherings seemed to take place around a table.

To this day, whenever I go home, my parents want to know the things I want to eat while I’m on Staten Island – the meals that I miss the most when I’m away from home.

I imagine that something similar is true for you and your families as well. Whether you have an Italian grandmother or not, I’m sure you have your own stories of holiday meals, old family recipes and favorite dishes.

And it’s pretty clear, that across cultures and time this is in fact a deeply human phenomenon. Food, fellowship and family go together hand in hand no matter what the culture or language.

And the reason that this is the case seems pretty clear as well. In the end we all know that it’s not really about the ingredients or the menu or the meal – it’s the fact that love is made tangible in food!

Friends, in a very real way that is what we celebrate today as we observe Corpus Christi: the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord. We celebrate the fact that on the night before He died, Jesus took bread and wine and gave it to His disciples, telling them to eat and drink His Body and Blood, which is life for the world.

Jesus loved His disciples, and He loves us so very much, He longed to give them and us His very Body and Blood as a source of nourishment and life.

Have you ever felt that kind of love for someone – have you ever longed to give up your very self, your very flesh and blood, if that’s what it took to give the one you loved most the fullness of life?

I’d like to share what I think is a beautiful explication of that kind of love.

Andre Dubus was an American author, renowned as an essayist and writer of short stories. Despite experiencing real tragedies in his life, including the loss of both his legs in a car accident, Dubus remained a deeply faithful Catholic until his death in 1999.



Andre Dubus once wrote the following about the love he had for his two young daughters:

“Because I am divorced, on Tuesdays I drive to my daughters’ school, where they are in the seventh and second grades. They do not like the food at their school, and the school does not let them bring food, so after classes they are hungry, and I bring them sandwiches, potato chips, Cokes, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

On Tuesdays when I make lunches for my girls, I focus on this: the sandwiches are sacraments. Not the miracle of the Eucharist – of transubstantiation: of bread and wine changing into the Body and Blood of Christ. But it is certainly parallel with it, moving in the same direction.

If I could give my children my body to eat, again and again without losing it, my body like the loaves and fishes going endlessly into mouths and stomachs, I would do it.”

I think you parents especially, understand just what kind of love that is. But of course, as much as we love our children, and one another, we simply cannot do that – we cannot really give them our very selves, our bodies, our flesh and blood for life and nourishment.

But because God is God He can do this! – and that is precisely what He does!

The Eucharist really and truly is Jesus’ Body and Blood. It’s not just a symbol. As another famous American Catholic author, Flannery O’Connor, once wrote: “if it’s just a symbol, then to Hell with it.”

No, the Eucharist is real: the Eucharist is love made tangible in food. Out of His tremendous love, Jesus gives us His very self – His flesh and blood – as true food and true drink, so that you and I might have life.

On the Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus we renew our faith in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist and we celebrate the central importance of the Eucharist in our lives and the life of the Church. Mysterious though it remains, we give thanks to God for such a tremendous love.

We recommit ourselves to treating the Eucharist with the tremendous respect and devotion it deserves by striving to receive it worthily; by being faithful in attending the Eucharist each and every Sunday; by behaving reverently in the presence of the Eucharist and by coming to pray in Jesus’ Sacramental Presence.

And finally, we remind ourselves that, “we are what we eat.” We dedicate ourselves to being, in word and in deed, the Body of Christ in the Church and the world – laying ourselves down in sacrifice and service just as Jesus did.

Brothers and sisters, grateful for the Eucharist; grateful for God’s love made tangible in the food and drink that are His Body and Blood, let us again fulfill the Lord’s command and celebrate in memory of Him.