Homily for May 3, 2009

This will be a show and tell homily. This little lamb was given to me by a First Communion class 28 years ago, in a small country parish down in Dearborn County. It has a banner with the saying, "I am the good shepherd and know my sheep." It sits on the floor in my office where I can see it.
Some days I see it and I feel really good. I remember that date 28 years ago and the kids that gave it to me. Some days I see it and I want to turn it to the wall and hide it, because that phrase, "I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep," makes me feel challenged and guilty. Some days I see it and I feel reasonably good about it. I never feel ecstatically good about it, because there's always room to be challenged.
Well, I brought it out today to share it with you. Think of those words of Jesus in the Gospel. Think of ourselves as a community, and think of yourselves as parents, teachers, friends.
Now, just the adults, repeat after me these words: I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and they know me.
How does that make you feel? Some days good? There's a challenge there, isn't there? I want to invite us to hear that challenge today and to reflect on it, because it means something for us as a community to be celebrating First Communion.
Now I want to show you, the bread we use today for communion is going to be different than the bread we ordinarily use. What's different about this bread?
It's square. It's square, not round, okay. What else is different?
This time we made it. This time the children made it. So yesterday they were on a retreat and they made this bread themselves.
Now, what is this right now? Bread. What will it become?
The body. The body of Christ, okay. When I hold it up and you come up, I will hold it up and say, "The body of Christ." What will you say? Amen. What does "amen" mean? Can anybody tell me? Who has an answer? Yes? What does "amen" mean? "I believe." Yes. "Amen" says, "Yes, so be it."
Now, I was pastor of a parish down in New Albany once, and they had a habit when I went there that I did not try to change. The Bishop was there one Sunday and he tried to change it, but he didn't succeed. When I held up the host and said "the body of Christ," do you know what they answered? Amen? That's what they were supposed to answer, and that's what the Bishop told them they were supposed to answer. But they had a unique answer that was not really correct, because when I hold up the host and say, "This is the body of Christ," I'm asking you to agree to that statement and say, “Yes it is.” But what they said was, "Yes we are." That answer was also correct, because we are the body of Christ.
I'm going to get very academic for a while. St. Thomas Aquinas was a great teacher in the church, and he wrote volumes of books. When he talked about the Eucharist  (I'm going to say some Latin words now, because some things sound a little jazzy and special in Latin)  he talked about the res and the sacramentum. The res is the reality, what is. The sacramentum is the sacrament, the symbol.

Now, I'll invite the adults to join in. What is the sacrament? Anybody want to guess? What do you think St. Thomas said the sacrament was? The Eucharist, yes. The bread on the altar that becomes the body of Christ. What is the reality? I'm getting a little deep, but this is what St. Thomas said: The reality is we become the body of Christ, and that's why Christ is in the Eucharist.
So St. Thomas talked about the reality alone, and that's us as the body of Christ; the sacrament alone, and that's the Eucharist on the altar; and the reality and the sacrament together, and that's us gathered around the altar receiving the sacrament and becoming the body of Christ.
Now, in the second reading today St. John said, "See what love the Father has bestowed on us in letting us be called children of God. Yet that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it never knew Christ. But one day we will know him and be revealed for what we are."
St. Paul would say, "See what love God has given us in letting us become the body of Christ, yet that is what we are. The reason the world doesn't recognize us is that it never recognized Christ, but one day all of that will be revealed to us."
So as they receive their Communion today and we say they're receiving the body of Christ, yes, they are, the body of Christ in the bread. But they're also receiving us, the community, as the body of Christ. And when we give them the bread, we are giving them not only the body of Christ in the Eucharist, but we're giving them ourselves as the body of Christ.