A Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Readings: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a   1 Corinthians 10:16-17   John 6:51-58

Who selects our childhood memories? If we are responsible, why do we recall what we do? All those days, months and years! And this is what we remember?

I am alone right after school, twisting around the school flagpole. I am talking to an imaginary friend. I know I made him up. Somewhere around the fourth grade, I decided, at least for a day or so, that I would do better with an imaginary companion than with real ones. Evidently, those were in short supply. 

My classmate Loretta saw me, swinging around the pole, talking to myself. Like Lucy in the “Peanuts” comic strip, she chortled something like “Weirdo!” and walked on.

I do not remember if I named my imaginary friend. There probably was not much point. I was not going to introduce him to my mother and expect her to engage with us. There was too much Loretta in my mother for that!

This was different than when we were taught that our guardian angel was always with us. Sister said that we were not supposed to name our angel because God already had. But we soon realized that Sister did not mean that our guardian angels would dialogue with us as we did with our friends.

That day at the flagpole, I needed a friend. So, I created one, even if his life would be short-lived. 

I was not good at sports. At least not on the playground. I was not good at studies either. This was before Sister Digna, examining standardized test scores, informed me that I should not be making C’s. That only A’s would be acceptable from then on. Back then, nuns could just order such things, and they happened!

But becoming an A student was not going to improve my situation. Eggheads do not win popularity contests. As Karl Jung wrote:

Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views that others find inadmissible (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 12).

The point is, there was nothing unusual about my situation. Sooner or later in life, we are all lonely: kids, students, widows, even spouses. Believe me, as a priest, I hear it all the time.

Often during my seminary years, I would say to our Lord, “If I do become a priest, can you promise me that I will never be lonely?” But he was like my guardian angel. Whatever he was saying, he was not using words. 

And here we come to my second point. I was either sitting or kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacrament when I made that request. 

That is the curious, the fascinating, the graced fact about the mystery we call the Blessed Sacrament. 

Catholics have a knack for naming. Sometimes we opt for Latin or Greek names, just to be ornery and confuse Protestants, but often enough, the right name just shows up and quickly enters our usage.

Blessed Lord, Blessed Mother, Blessed Sacrament: The three titles have something in common. We use them to say that we are face-to-face with another person, someone who engages us, listens to us and then responds to us. In this case, a divine person.

We call it the “Blessed Sacrament” because we encounter a person, resting there in the tabernacle or exposed before us on the altar in a monstrance. How do we know that we are in the presence of another person? 

It is how I knew that a real person was not with me at that flagpole. The way we sensible people know that A.I. will never be our friend. 

Imaginary friends do not gaze upon us. They do not look at us with love. A Catholic who takes the time to visit the Blessed Sacrament—that is how we put it; we make a visit—soon enough sees the gaze and knows that another person is there. 

Perhaps one must first feel the loneliness to sense the love. 

Commenting upon the murmuring that met Jesus when he proclaimed himself “the bread which came down from heaven” (Jn 6:21), St. Augustine was not surprised by the reception of the crowd. “This is the doctrine of grace; none comes unless they are drawn” (Tractates on the Gospel of John 26:2).

Given his own life experience, Augustine understood that something needs to break within us, some emptiness needs to stand exposed, before we are ready to look up and see the Lord, gazing upon us in love. 

Catholic churches strive to remain open during the day because someone is going to wander in and be wowed by the experience of being in the presence of another, someone who gazes upon them. 

Augustine continued:

There is a certain craving of the heart to which the bread of heaven is sweet…. Do not the bodily senses have their pleasures, and the soul its?… Give me one who loves, who longs, who burns, who sighs for the source of his being and his eternal home, and he will know what I mean…. For if earthly objects, when put before us, draw us…how much more shall Christ, when revealed by the Father? (Tractates on the Gospel of John 26:4-6).

Christians disagree whether Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. Even those who are sure that he is debate the manner of the mystery. But there is a reason Catholics confined to bed—are we ever more alone than when we are sick?—rejoice when the Blessed Sacrament is brought to them. 

And there is a reason a Catholic who passes time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament cannot imagine seeking the Lord anywhere else. Simon Peter spoke for all of us when, after being rejected by the crowd, Christ turned to the Twelve and asked, “Do you also want to leave?” (Jn 6:67). We say the same every time we genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament, or at least we could:

Master, to whom shall we go? 
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe 
and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God (Jn 6:68-69).

● ● ●

Photo by Andrew V on Unsplash

The Rev. Terrance W. Klein is a priest of the Diocese of Dodge City and author of Vanity Faith.