Yesterday's Mass was for the repose of the soul of Padraig Quinn (+), may he be forever blessed. Mass was offered this morning for the people of the Parish.
Yes, I did mean Saint Anthony of Lisbon. The Portuguese Saint is known as that in the larger Portuguese world to which I belong for, although he died at Padua/Padova, he was born Ferdinand (or Fernando) right next to the cathedral church in Lisbon city and in his youth was an Augustinian canon in a house by the walls of the city. Later on, inspired by the Franciscan missionaries who were giving their lives to re-evangelise the north of Africa, which had been under Islamic rule for centuries, Ferdinand joined the first Order of Saint Francis, called the Friars Minor, and took the name Anthony, becoming a formidable preacher and teacher, often called the Hammer of Heretics, and Evangelical Doctor. Better known as a fabulous miracle-worker, he has many tales told of his miracles, such as concerning the preaching to the fish and the double-genuflection of the donkey.
And that brings us happily along to the feast day of today, Corpus Christi, transferred over from the Thursday last. The story, in short, is this: the Saint met a Jewish man who made light of the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence of our Lord in the holy Eucharist and wished to challenged Anthony publicly. He proposed to starve a donkey for three days and see if the beast would prefer to eat hay or approach the Blessed Sacrament. While the donkey was being starved, Anthony himself went on a total fast. On the day of the trial, Anthony brouth the Blessed Sacrament to where the donkey was tied (as in the picture, in a monstrance). The donkey being untied headed for the pile of hay that had been prepared, when Anthony raised the Sacrament and commanded the beast to adore Christ in the Sacrament. To the surprise of all, the donkey changed its mind at once, ran over to the priest and, folding its forelegs, bowed its head to the ground before the Sacrament. According to the story, the Jewish man became a Catholic at once, and so on and so forth. This story comes into its own on this significant feast day, when we as Catholics meditate on that very central truth of the Faith: that the bread and the wine, when consecrated at the altar, become in very reality the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Church has asked us to accept this on faith since the very beginning, and only long after Apostolic times did theologians and philosophers begin to speculate as to how this can have been achieved and at what precise point during the Mass it takes place.
There are two key texts from the New Testament to consider today. The first is the entire sixth chapter of the Gospel of Saint John, a part of which is given as the gospel reading at Mass today. In it, the Lord Himself describes the Sacrament and suffers the loss of many disciples, who cannot accept the novelty of the new institution. 'I tell you solemnly,' He says, 'that if you do not eat of the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you will not have life in you.' The second text I wanted to mention comes towards the end of the eleventh chapter of Saint Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. This is what Paul says:
"So it is the Lord’s death that you are heralding, whenever you eat this Bread and drink this cup, until He comes. And therefore, if anyone eats this Bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, he will be held to account for the Lord’s Body and Blood. A man must examine himself first, and then eat of that bread and drink of that cup; he is eating and drinking damnation to himself if he eats and drinks unworthily, not recognizing the Lord’s body for what it is. That is why many of your number want strength and health, and not a few have died. If we recognised our own fault, we should not incur these judgements."
We've got to get this right, about our relationship with God, as it is described in holy Scripture and in the writings of the Saints: it is a relationship of love, it uses the language of a love affair. We are not slaves to God, but children, and the relationship is not one-sided but mutual. And God respects our own contribution to the relationship, whether or not we accept Him and return His love. He will not drag us into heaven, kicking and screaming, but He nonetheless desires that we attain that happiness and pours out His gifts of grace to enable to do so. And he wishes us to desire that grace and to accept it and be blessed. God is endlessly merciful, but He wishes us, as Paul says, to recognise our faults, to be humble before Him, to be contrite of heart, wishing to ever avoid sin in the future. And then His graces abound. The immense Mercy of God enables Him to welcome back with an embrace the biggest of sinners who has found contrition, and the greatest sign of His Goodness and Mercy to us is the gift of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord.
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