Homily for June 14, 2009 Body and Blood of Christ

Sometimes when we celebrate feast days in the church, I like to wonder, "Where did this feast come from, and why is it in the calendar of the church?" So I looked up some information about the feast day that we celebrate today, the Feast of Corpus Christi as it used to be called, or the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.
It dates back to the 12th century. Now, let me explain a little bit about what was going on in the church in that time. Until that time, people never questioned whether the bread and wine at Mass became the body and blood of Christ. They just believed it. It's the body of Christ, and it's the blood of Christ, and when we participate in the Eucharist we become part of the body of Christ.
Well, there was a man named Berengarius who took it upon himself to explain, "How can this be that this becomes the body and blood of Christ?" As you might guess, whenever we try to wrap our mind around God's revelation, we're in deep trouble. So anyway, Berengarius couldn't explain how that happens, so he denied it. Simple enough, right? If I can't explain it, I'll deny it. So anyway, he denied it, and then that created a counter reaction in the Church of affirming with a vengeance, "Yes, this really is the body of Christ."
It was at that time in the history of the Church that Eucharistic devotion began. Until that time we would have never thought of carrying the Eucharist around or exposing the Eucharist and things like benediction or worshipping it. We just assumed that it was true. Eucharistic devotion began to come into the church at this time. Do you follow me so far?
About the year 1109 a Dominican nun named Juliana of Liege began having a recurrent dream, and in her dream she saw the full moon with a dark spot on it. And she came to understand her dream in this way, that the full moon was the church and the dark spot was the absence of a feast in honor of the Eucharist. So she went to the archdeacon in the diocese where she lived and persuaded him to go to the Bishop and have a feast in honor of the Eucharist. So one was celebrated.
Well, wouldn't you know it, that archdeacon became Pope years later and he remembered Juliana, and he declared this to be a feast of the universal church. Well, nobody listened to him, so it took about a hundred years for the idea to catch on. Let that be a lesson to you. People in authority aren't always listened to, and sometimes it takes a long time for an idea to catch on and take hold.
I hope that information is useful to you. As I thought of the feast, I wanted to link it to some of the thinking that we had when we restored our church.
Look around. It's a beautiful job, isn't it? The architect whom we hired made two recommendations that we did not accept, and I want to share with you what they were.
The first was this area back here, where we have coffee and donuts. He wanted to carpet that. Now, what's your reaction to that right away? What? Yeah, Maureen said all she could think of is what a mess it would be if we carpeted that area back there and we'd have spilled coffee and ground in donuts. So what was the architect thinking when he recommended that?
Now, my shoes have rubber heels and soles, so I'm not picking on women here, but imagine if you're a woman with heels and you are walking across that area. What would happen when you left that area and got onto the hardwood floor of this area? What would happen? You would become conscious of the noise of your feet on the floor, and you probably would slow down and probably try to walk softer.
That's what he was trying to achieve, that when we left that area and walked into this area we would know that we were leaving a gathering area and coming into a worshipping area.
The other recommendation he made (how many of you remember this?):  he wanted to build an arch there and suspend the crucifix from it. Well, that idea went over like a lead balloon when we presented it to the parish, and so after listening to all of your input, I said no way.
What was he trying to achieve by that recommendation? Any guesses? On the plan, what he was trying to communicate was that that area back there where the old high altar is and where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, that that was a separate area. In fact, on the plans he listed that as a Blessed Sacrament Chapel with the thought that maybe people would want to go there and pray.
Now, I have no regrets that we didn't carpet the area back there, and I have no regrets that we didn't build an arch there. I'm sure if we put that arch there people would still be complaining about it. And I'm sure that if we had carpeted the back, people would still be complaining.
The question I want to raise for our reflection  and I really don't have an answer to it is this: do you think we missed something in not doing what he was trying to achieve? How many would say yes, that we missed something? What is it that we missed?
We missed creating a separation between sacred space and communal space. Is that important? What do you think? Joe says it's a plus. It seems like it's all sacred space and it's all communal. It all flows together right now, and there are some pluses to that. I love the sense of ease and freedom and comfort that people have. You don't walk into Holy Cross like you walk into some other churches.
At the same time I think in our communal life we struggle with things that we miss in that, and I'm not proposing anything.
[inaudible]
Okay. Did you all hear that? Jose was saying, first of all, in the summer he misses winter, and in the winter he misses summer. So there is something wonderful about the way we are now, but there is also a yearning for that sense of sacredness and worship. And one of his fond memories is 40 hours devotion and watching Maude Wernsing  just as a curiosity, how many remember Maude Wernsing  and watching her at prayer there, and there was a sense...
Jay? Okay. Jay was saying, as usually it is, it's both/and, not either/or. So there's the need both for the public gathering and for the private prayer and devotion.
If you were to give us  meaning Holy Cross  a grade on balance between the two, what grade would you give us? You'd give us an A? How many would give us an A? Okay. How many would give us another grade? Okay.
Anyway, I didn't start this with any conclusion to draw, but I just wanted to use the feast today and its history as an occasion to lift some things up for our consciousness and for our reflection, ongoing.
[inaudible].
Maureen was commenting on how much she likes the portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe and how she identifies with the man, Juan Diego, being invited to come closer to Jesus.
By the way, on our deacon weekend this weekend, it's all on spirituality, and as I left to come here, they were talking about Juliana of Norwich, a medieval anchorite. But one of the things they were talking about is she was illiterate. And so her visions  and she wrote a big book, Revelations  her visions were all taken from the artwork that she saw around her, and those became her vision of God. And I think that's true of us as a church.
Just to end on a personal note, one of the huge meanings to me of our belief about the Eucharist and our celebration is, everything else I do can be corrupted and emptied of meaning by my own inadequacies and weaknesses, and here is one thing that we do together that has meaning that transcends us. No matter how sinful we are, no matter how inadequate we are, no matter what's gone on in our life in the past week, when we come together here today, we believe that Jesus is really present, offering himself to us as our food and our nourishment. And that's rock bottom truth that we always believe, and none of our quirkiness can ever take that truth away.