(audio recording Sun., 5pm Mass)
Since 2015, the two National Basketball Association (NBA) teams that
have fiercely competed in the national Championship Finals are the Cleveland
Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors.
The Warriors have won twice against the Cavaliers and plan to win again
this year.
With their victory, players, coaches and managers receive a
prestigious NBA Championship Ring. The
rings are either gold or silver with the team name and year of victory, and
they are made from the most precious metals the earth can produce.
As often as a player would wear their well-earned Championship Rings,
they remember all that was involved leading up to the final victory— with all
the ups and downs, games lost and games won, and the hardship and sacrifice
involved. To use the words of Steph
Curry, QUOTE “I’m sure you wanna remember the moments and that’s
a good way to do it: by looking down and seeing what the ring represents.” END QUOTE
In a sense, just the NBA Championship Ring brings the past, present
and future glory of victory on the court, so too is the Holy Eucharist that we
receive at Sunday Mass a re-presentation
today of the one sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. All the memories, feelings, passion, death
and glorious Resurrection are not just vague moment in the past, but rather the
past is made present – it is re-presented – when the priest consecrates humblest
elements of bread and wine produced by the earth.
On Holy Thursday, the night before Jesus was betrayed, Jesus gave
us a way to remember His great love on the Cross. He instituted the Holy Eucharist. The Last Supper was the First Mass. But to have the Mass, you need to have
priests first. This is why Jesus
consecrated his Twelve Apostles the new high priests of the New and Everlasting
Covenant on Holy Thursday as well.
The Eucharist is not the Old and Temporary Covenant that we see in
the First Reading when Moses took the blood of animals and sprinkled it on the
people, but rather it is the New and Everlasting Covenant, where the Blood of
the Lamb, Jesus who is both Priest and Victim, is offered to the Eternal Father
as a sacrifice for our sins.
The word amnesia means someone who forgets. But the Greek word “anamnesis” means to remember. Anamnesis.
We remember what God has done for us.
Remember that God brought his people out of slavery in Egypt and gave
them bread from heaven. Remember that
the blood of the lamb sprinkled on the Hebrew door posts saved the firstborn
from the Angel of Death. Remember the
Bread that was kept in the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, and eventually
placed in the Temple in Jerusalem.
When a validly ordained Catholic priest of the New Law of love pronounces the words of institution over ordinary bread,
“This is my body” the bread is no longer bread, but it is truly, literally,
physically, and really Jesus’s body. The
Eucharist IS Jesus! The priest does not
say, “This is a symbol of my body” (as the Protestants believe it is only a mere
symbol but Catholics do not believe it is a symbol), but “This IS my body.” My 5 senses
tell me it is bread, but my Faith tells me it is the Body of Jesus. It may look like bread, smell like bread,
sound like bread, feel like bread, and taste like bread, but it is NOT bread. The substance of the bread changes into Jesus’
body and blood. It is the Real Presence
of Jesus in a sacramental way. In
Heaven, we will not need the sacraments anymore because we will be with Jesus.
If Jesus were to walk to this ambo and take this piece of paper and
say, “This is not a piece of paper. This
is a BMW car,” then I will say, “Amen.
This is a BMW car.” Why? Because Jesus who is God and is all truth does
not lie. In the hymn written by St.
Thomas Aquinas, Adoro Te Devote, one of my favorite lines is “What God’s Son
has told me / Take for truth I do / Truth Himself Speaks Truly, or there’s
nothing true.” I will believe what Jesus
says that bread is his Body.
So what does this mean? Jesus
who gave this to you and me doesn’t just ask us – he commands us – Do this in memory
of me. This is why we must be resolved
to attend weekly Sunday Mass. Sunday
Mass is the center of an authentic Catholic life. Vatican II said that the life of the Church
flows from the Eucharist and everything goes to the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the center. Without the Eucharist, the Church would not
exist and we would forget what Jesus did on the Cross. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let us
plan our vacations, travel, work, recreation, and sports activities so that it does
not interfere with Sunday Mass.
And not only are we called to attend Sunday Mass, we are called to
receive the Holy Communion in the state of grace. One should not receive in the state of mortal
sin. Get a blessing instead by crossing
your arms. Did you know that if you
willingly miss Sunday Mass on purpose, you have to go to Confession first and
confess it before receiving Holy Communion the following Sunday? Unless there is “grave cause” to miss Sunday
Mass, like illness, child care, cannot get out of work, necessary travel, etc.,
we should attend Sunday Mass and Holy Days of Obligation which have the same
weight as a Sunday Mass. When viewed
from the point of view of doing it for love of God, then Sunday Mass makes
sense. When someone we love is dying and
they have a dying request, we honor it.
Jesus’s last will and testament was for us to receive his body and
blood. Sunday Mass fulfills this command
of love from our Beloved.
When we find it difficult to attend Mass, let us turn to the words
of Pope St. John Paul the Great who wrote in his encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia that Mary is the
Woman of the Eucharist. She will help us
love the Eucharist. Just as Mary gave
her fiat to carry Jesus inside her, so too when we receive the Eucharistic
Jesus we have Jesus living in our souls. In closing let us like her love the Eucharistic Jesus. And let us, to use the words of today’s
Responsorial Psalm, let us take up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of
the Lord. Amen.
“Golden State Warrior Rings & the Holy Eucharist at Sunday Mass”
(Homily #134 for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi)
By Deacon Dennis Purificacion
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