Corpus Christi - June 17, 2025

Corpus Christi

June 22, 2025

 

    Today we celebrate the feast of the body and blood of Christ, the eucharist. The second Vatican council reminds us that the eucharist is the source and summit of our faith.

    All we are, has its source in this celebration. At this celebration we are given the most ancient text about the last supper, the institution of the Eucharist. In Paul’s letter to the community of Corinth he tells us what took place at the night before Jesus suffered and died.

    In this account Jesus says to the disciple “do this in remembrance of me.” This remembrance is not simply calling to mind something that took place over 2000 years ago. The remembrance is about living the life Jesus has asked us to live. We live his example, Eucharist for us is about who we are and how we live.

Each week we come to be fed with the word of God and the gift of the eucharist. This Sharing in the one bread and one cup becomes a moment of transformation. We are changed by this celebration. We go forth to live what we have experienced.

In the gospel today, we hear of the feeding of the 5000 with the five loaves and 2 fishes, Barbara Reed askes an important question in this month’s issue of Give us this day, “Did Jesus actually multiply the loaves and fishes. Or was it a miracle in which everyone was prompted to share with others what they had brought? A better question is: How do we replicate the giving of our whole selves, body, mind and spirit, to the One who is the source of all nourishment so that we may be broken up in love for the life of the world?”

What we do on the weekend does not end at the doors of the church building. We go forth to live the Eucharist. This is what deacon Myers meant when he wrote his book “Living the real presence”.

After we come forward to receive communion we have a moment of silent prayer as we contemplate how this celebration will remain with us for the days to come. Then we stand for the post communion prayer, our home work. The prayer tells us how we live what we have received. This is why we stay after communion. We stay to pray as the body of Christ and to hear what we are do next.

Here is the post communion prayer for this mass:

Grant, O Lord, we pray that we may delight for all eternity in that share in your divine life, which is foreshadowed in the present age by our reception of your precious body and blood

Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

 

Each time we come forward to receive the Eucharist we come as a community. We come as the body of Christ. The communion reception is a sign of unity. We come standing to receive. We are united in voice as we sing the communion hymn. We receive communion. We do not grab it we open our hands to receive. We are all receivers of this gift. All that is given to us if a gift and we receive this gift which is freely given by our God and then we go forward to give this gift all who we meet. 

The miracle of each mass is the gathering of the body of Christ and what we receive we freely give to others. The mass goes on and on throughout our days for our whole life. 

The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, November 8, 2025

By Fr. Chris Welch • November 6, 2025
St. John Lateran is the cathedral of Rome. The church was built on land belonging to the Lateran family, thus the name St. John Lateran. Connected to the church is the baptistry, a large building used for baptisms. This is the oldest baptistry in Rome. The building dates to the days of Emperor Constantine and includes image of the battle of Milvin Bridge (312) when Constantine had a vision of the cross and later declared Christianity the official religion of the empire. In our first reading on this feast, we hear of the water flowing in the temple. Water is used in the sacrament of baptism. The baptistry at John Lateran is the oldest of its kind and speaks to us of the sacrament. Water speaks of the two elements of the sacrament of baptism, death and life. Those who are baptized die to their old way of life and participate in the resurrection of our Lord as they experience new life in this sacrament. In the waters of baptism, we are cleansed from the stain of original sin, and we are initiated into the body of Christ. The initiation into the body of Christ is the reason we baptize at the weekend liturgy. The person is being brought in as a member of the body of Christ, and the body of Christ gathers on the weekends at Mass. In the early church there were adults who were baptized. They would spend a period journeying with a sponsor and learning about the faith and at the Easter Vigil the bishop would come (in the early days there were no priests, just bishops), the community would gather, and the bishop would perform the rites of initiation, baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist. The OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) recaptures this practice of the early church. Over the years it has become common to baptize infants. Canon Law, the law of the church, considers a child of 6 years to be an adult and thus is invited to enter the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. Baptism is the first and most important sacrament. Each time we enter a church we bless ourselves with holy water to recall our baptism. In so many of our sacraments the church takes simple things and uses them to speak about aspects of our faith. Water has become a sign of the death of Christ and a sign of his resurrection. We use oil, a simple element, for anointing and healing in the sacrament of Baptism. The lit candle speaks of the light of Christ brought to the person in the sacrament and finally the cross is made on the mouth and ears of the person for hearing and speaking the word of God. Other sacraments use simple things to speak about a greater reality. We use bread and wine in the Mass; a simple gold ring is exchanged to speak about the love of God that unites a man and wife. Today we celebrate the dedication of an important space in our world church. The Church of St. John Lateran and its baptistry have allowed many to touch into the love our God for many years. We are thankful for this holy place.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • October 19, 2025
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • September 21, 2025
Language scholars who have studied the origins of the word mammon in Hebrew and Aramaic have found clear association with words meaning wealth, riches, money, profit and possessions. But there is also evidence that one of the root words for mammon also means “that in which one trusts.” On all of our US currency — each coin and paper bill — is a simple (and, I suspect, often overlooked) phrase: “In God we trust.” This phrase was added during the Cold War to distinguish our currency, and nation, from that of the atheist Soviet Union. On each of our denominations of currency, both coins and paper bills, we have this simple reminder in whom we should be placing our trust in — God — and not what we should be placing it in: the fruit of our human activity, especially money. It is a poignant reminder to us today in light of the Gospel passage we hear and our current experience. This reminder begs us to ask two questions of ourselves and collectively as a country and society: Do we trust in God first? Always, everywhere, in everything? Or do we place our trust first in small-“g” god, or gods of human origin? In answering those questions, we might ask ourselves, what do our actions say about whether we place our trust first in God, or in humans? Where are we spending our time and treasure? This past month has brought us yet more tragic and traumatic reminders of our society’s misplaced trust. The recent spate of wounding and taking of innocent lives through gun violence in service of an ideology of retribution is just the most recent in a continuing human saga of such behavior, behavior that places trust in leading with human action to resolve differences, over our openness and trust in allowing God to lead us to a conversion of heart and to reconciliation. There is more that could be said about the responsible use of wealth in service to God. About detachment from ‘goods’ of this world — goods that God gives us out of love to draw us closer and more deeply into love with God, that we might revere God and God’s creation, but not take those goods in place of God. But in light of our continuing tragedies and the lack of reverence for human life, created by God in the image and likeness of God, of which they are clear evidence, the most important response we can offer is what St. Paul exhorts us to in his letter to Timothy, when he writes: First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. And so we will pray to God, as St Paul asks. Pray collectively for those who have suffered violence in all forms against humanity. We will pray collectively for those wounded, those who have lost their lives and their families. And then perhaps most difficult of all, we will pray for those who perpetrated this violence, and all who are tempted to perpetrate violence against humanity. We should be challenged in our prayers to pray for people we don’t want to pray for. We may find the heart that is converted is our own. In all these prayers we place our trust first and foremost in God, who desires to save us, and who “proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). In this is our act of Faith. In this is our act of Hope.