REVERENCE FOR THE BODY OF CHRIST
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
June 23, 2019
I’m sure that many of you saw the headline on the front page of yesterday’s Star Tribune, titled, “Migrant Children living in filth at overcrowded facility.” I’m sorry to bring such depressing and unvarnished news this morning, but here’s part of what it said: “A chaotic scene of sickness and filth is unfolding in an overcrowded border station in Clint, TX, where hundreds of people who have recently crossed the border are being held…some of the children have been there for nearly a month.” “Children as young as 7 and 8, many of them wearing clothes caked with snot and tears, are caring for infants they’ve just met…Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants…Most of the young detainees have not been able to shower or wash their clothes since they arrived…They have no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap…” And as one visitor noted, “There is a stench.”
Whatever our politics on immigration policy may be, the fact is that these are children living in the United States of America under our custodial care. Today, while we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi—the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
We rightly venerate and adore Jesus in bread and wine each time we come here to do Eucharist. But as a practical matter, this is the most safe and non-demanding way that we ever are asked to honor his body and blood. Because a wafer of bread and a sip of wine, in and of themselves, ask nothing of us. And in fact, far too often they are treated as one more commodity that I can come to church and “get.” Bread doesn’t cry out in bodily pain, and wine doesn’t demand a response now.
But immigrant children do. And they, as well as we, are the true body and blood of Christ—no less than what we profess to worship at this table. No less. And our partaking in this Eucharist is not only something that is meant to console us. It is something that is meant to stir us, to shake us up. To approach this sacrament each week is not supposed to be a dry routine or a mere pious practice.
It’s supposed to be a regular engagement with the question of who we really are, what we most deeply believe about God and life, and what is our responsibility to others. To welcome the consecrated food and drink—to dare to approach the table—is to say “Amen” to a commitment, not just to an idea. The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in Clint, TX is being neglected and dishonored, and we are obliged to care about that just as much as we care about what is placed on this altar, and what we receive into our hands. This is food and drink from heaven, but food and drink is never an end in itself. It is meant to nourish and strengthen and empower us for the mission, for the work of Christ in the world. He told us—twice in fact—in today’s 2nd reading to take the bread and the cup “in remembrance of me…” That remembrance doesn’t mean some kind of idle nostalgia. It means “go out there and do what I once did. Tend to the poor and the sick and the outcast. Notice the little ones. Forgive those who have done wrong. Raise your voice in protest when injustice and cruelty and violence and racism seem to carry the day. This food is meant to be your strength, not your idol.”
The reverence and respect with which we treat this bread and this wine is meant to recall for us the very same reverence and respect that is owed to every person who is part of the living body of Christ. And whenever there is a disconnect there—like children living in squalor in a detention camp—we have our work to do. We can pray. We can speak. We can vote. We can serve. We can decide how to share our resources. We can do more than nothing, and so give specific response to our faith.
The Body and Blood of Christ isn’t just a holy relic. It is a call to action. And so even as we honor it particularly today, let us be appropriately challenged by what our “Amen” requires of us each time we receive it. There is a living body out there that awaits our concern.
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