June 11, 2023
On this Feast that asks us to focus on the Eucharist, on the Body and Blood of Christ, I want to take us back in our imaginations to March 27, 2020. It was the height of the Covid pandemic. People were dying, often alone, apart from even their families. We were told to isolate, and we experienced a mutual fear, wondering whether or not we would survive.
It was on March 27, 2020 that Pope Francis offered a blessing to the world from the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica—a blessing to an empty St. Peter’s Square, a blessing to a frightened world. But in a very dramatic gesture, he did not bless only with his hand, or only with his voice. Instead, he used a monstrance, a kind of artistic display case that houses the Eucharistic Lord. Pope Francis blessed with the most profound, most powerful blessing he could think of—a blessing of Jesus himself, fully present, mysteriously present in a consecrated, round piece of bread.
Pope Francis’ message that day focused on the story of Jesus and his disciples crossing a sea in a boat. While Jesus sleeps in the stern, a severe storm arises, and the disciples fear for their very lives. They wake Jesus up, crying out in panic, “Teacher, does it not matter to you that we are going to drown?” Jesus, don’t you care? My God, don’t you care? (Mark 4:35-41)
Let me share some of Pope Francis’ teaching at that perilous moment. “When evening had come’…The Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost….
When he [Jesus] wakes up, after calming the wind and the waters, he turns to the disciples in a reproaching voice: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”….
Lord, you are calling to us, calling us to faith. Which is not so much believing that you exist, but coming to you and trusting in you….You are calling us to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing. It is not the time of your judgment, but of our judgment: a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what it is not. It is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others….
Faith begins when we realize we are in need of salvation. We are not self-sufficient; by ourselves we founder; we need the Lord, like ancient navigators needed the stars. Let us invite Jesus into the boats of our lives. Let us hand over our fears to him so that he can conquer them. Like the disciples, we will experience that with him on board there will be no shipwreck. Because this is God’s strength: turning to the good everything that happens to us, even the bad things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God life never dies.
With God life never dies….With that faith, the Holy Father then blessed the empty St. Peter’s Square and a frightened world with the Eucharistic Lord. With God life never dies: Pope Francis could not think of a better blessing or a better reassurance.
This is the Eucharistic reassurance that Jesus gives in today’s Gospel. Listen again with the ears of your heart:
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life eternal because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.
With God life never dies! Again, listen to the words of Pope Francis: Lord, your word strikes us and regards us, all of us. In this world, that you love more than we do, we have gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and able to do anything. Greedy for profit, we let ourselves get caught up in things, and lured away by haste. We did not stop at your reproach to us, we were not shaken awake by wars or injustice across the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor or of our ailing planet. We carried on regardless, thinking we would stay healthy in a world that was sick….
Lord, may you bless the world, give health to our bodies and comfort our hearts. You ask us not to be afraid. Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell us again: “Do not be afraid.”
On this Feast of the Eucharist, let us open our hearts to God’s richest blessings, as we remember that with God life never dies.