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Pope Benedict XVI- Homily |
Papal
Homily - Solemnity of Corpus Christi
"Jesus Comes to Meet Us and Imbues Us With Certainty"
H.H. Benedict XVI
Square in front of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran
Thursday, 7 June 2007
www.zenit.org
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We have just sung the Sequence: "Dogma datur christianis, / quod in
carnem transit panis, / et vinum in sanguinem -- this [is] the truth
each Christian learns, / bread into his flesh he turns, to his
precious blood the wine".
Today we reaffirm with great joy our faith in the Eucharist, the
Mystery that constitutes the heart of the Church. In the recent
Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis I recalled
that the Eucharistic Mystery "is the gift that Jesus Christ makes of
himself, thus revealing to us God's infinite love for every man and
woman" (n. 1).
Corpus Christi, therefore, is a unique feast and constitutes an
important encounter of faith and praise for every Christian
community. This feast originated in a specific historical and
cultural context: it was born for the very precise purpose of openly
reaffirming the faith of the People of God in Jesus Christ, alive
and truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. It is
a feast that was established in order to publicly adore, praise and
thank the Lord, who continues "to love us "to the end', even to
offering us his body and his blood" (Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 1).
The Eucharistic celebration this evening takes us back to the
spiritual atmosphere of Holy Thursday, the day on which in the Upper
Room, on the eve of his Passion, Christ instituted the Most Holy
Eucharist.
Corpus Christi is thus a renewal of the mystery of Holy Thursday, as
it were, in obedience to Jesus' invitation to proclaim from "the
housetops" what he told us in secret (cf. Mt 10:27). It was the
Apostles who received the gift of the Eucharist from the Lord in the
intimacy of the Last Supper, but it was destined for all, for the
whole world. This is why it should be proclaimed and exposed to
view: so that each one may encounter "Jesus who passes" as happened
on the roads of Galilee, Samaria and Judea; in order that each one,
in receiving it, may be healed and renewed by the power of his love.
Dear friends, this is the perpetual and living heritage that Jesus
has bequeathed to us in the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood. It
is an inheritance that demands to be constantly rethought and
relived so that, as venerable Pope Paul VI said, its "inexhaustible
effectiveness may be impressed upon all the days of our mortal life"
(cf. Insegnamenti, 25 May 1967, p. 779).
Also in the Post-Synodal Exhortation, commenting on the exclamation
of the priest after the consecration: "Let us proclaim the mystery
of faith!", I observed: with these words he "proclaims the mystery
being celebrated and expresses his wonder before the substantial
change of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord Jesus,
a reality which surpasses all human understanding" (n. 6).
Precisely because this is a mysterious reality that surpasses our
understanding, we must not be surprised if today too many find it
hard to accept the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It
cannot be otherwise. This is how it has been since the day when, in
the synagogue at Capernaum, Jesus openly declared that he had come
to give us his flesh and his blood as food (cf. Jn 6:26-58).
This seemed "a hard saying" and many of his disciples withdrew when
they heard it. Then, as now, the Eucharist remains a "sign of
contradiction" and can only be so because a God who makes himself
flesh and sacrifices himself for the life of the world throws human
wisdom into crisis.
However, with humble trust, the Church makes the faith of Peter and
the other Apostles her own and proclaims with them, and we proclaim:
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (Jn
6:68). Let us too renew this evening our profession of faith in
Christ, alive and present in the Eucharist. Yes, "this [is] the
truth each Christian learns, / bread into his flesh he turns, / to
his precious blood the wine".
At its culminating point, in the Sequence we sing: "Ecce panis
angelorum, / factus cibus viatorum: / vere panis filiorum" -- "Lo!
The angel's food is given / to the pilgrim who has striven; / see
the children's bread from heaven". And by God's grace we are the
children.
The Eucharist is the food reserved for those who in Baptism were
delivered from slavery and have become sons; it is the food that
sustained them on the long journey of the exodus through the desert
of human existence.
Like the manna for the people of Israel, for every Christian
generation the Eucharist is the indispensable nourishment that
sustains them as they cross the desert of this world, parched by the
ideological and economic systems that do not promote life but rather
humiliate it. It is a world where the logic of power and possessions
prevails rather than that of service and love; a world where the
culture of violence and death is frequently triumphant.
Yet Jesus comes to meet us and imbues us with certainty: he himself
is "the Bread of life" (Jn 6:35, 48). He repeated this to us in the
words of the Gospel Acclamation: "I am the living bread from Heaven,
if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever" (cf. Jn 6:51).
In the Gospel passage just proclaimed, St Luke, narrating the
miracle of the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish with
which Jesus fed the multitude "in a lonely place", concludes with
the words: "And all ate and were satisfied" (cf. Lk 9:11-17).
I would like in the first place to emphasize this "all". Indeed, the
Lord desired every human being to be nourished by the Eucharist,
because the Eucharist is for everyone.
If the close relationship between the Last Supper and the mystery of
Jesus' death on the Cross is emphasized on Holy Thursday, today, the
Feast of Corpus Christi, with the procession and unanimous adoration
of the Eucharist, attention is called to the fact that Christ
sacrificed himself for all humanity. His passing among the houses
and along the streets of our city will be for those who live there
an offering of joy, eternal life, peace and love.
In the Gospel passage, a second element catches one's eye: the
miracle worked by the Lord contains an explicit invitation to each
person to make his own contribution. The two fish and five loaves
signify our contribution, poor but necessary, which he transforms
into a gift of love for all.
"Christ continues today" I wrote in the above-mentioned Post Synodal
Exhortation, "to exhort his disciples to become personally engaged"
(Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 88).
Thus, the Eucharist is a call to holiness and to the gift of oneself
to one's brethren: "Each of us is truly called, together with Jesus,
to be bread broken for the life of the world" (ibid.).
Our Redeemer addressed this invitation in particular to us, dear
brothers and sisters of Rome, gathered round the Eucharist in this
historical square.
I greet you all with affection. My greeting is addressed first of
all to the Cardinal Vicar and to the Auxiliary Bishops, to my other
venerable Brother Cardinals and Bishops, as well as to the numerous
priests and deacons, men and women religious and the many lay
faithful.
At the end of the Eucharistic celebration we will join in the
procession as if to carry the Lord Jesus in spirit through all the
streets and neighbourhoods of Rome. We will immerse him, so to
speak, in the daily routine of our lives, so that he may walk where
we walk and live where we live.
Indeed we know, as the Apostle Paul reminded us in his Letter to the
Corinthians, that in every Eucharist, also in the Eucharist this
evening, we "proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (cf. I Cor
11:26). We travel on the highways of the world knowing that he is
beside us, supported by the hope of being able to see him one day
face to face, in the definitive encounter.
In the meantime, let us listen to his voice repeat, as we read in
the Book of Revelation, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if
any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and
eat with him, and he with me" (Rv 3:20).
The Feast of Corpus Christi wants to make the Lord's knocking
audible, despite the hardness of our interior hearing. Jesus knocks
at the door of our heart and asks to enter not only for the space of
a day but for ever. Let us welcome him joyfully, raising to him with
one voice the invocation of the Liturgy:
"Very bread, Good Shepherd, tend us, / Jesu, of your love befriend
us.... /You who all things can and know, /who on earth such food
bestow, / grant us with your saints, though lowest, / where the
heav'nly feast you show, / fellow heirs and guests to be".
Amen!
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