20200614 EVANGELIZE OR SACRAMENTALIZE
4 June, 2020, Sunday, Corpus Christi
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour: White.
First reading
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Deuteronomy 8:2-3,14-16 ©
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He fed you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known
Moses said to the people: ‘Remember how the Lord your God led you for forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, to test you and know your inmost heart – whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you, he made you feel hunger, he fed you with manna which neither you nor your fathers had known, to make you understand that man does not live on bread alone but that man lives on everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
‘Do not become proud of heart. Do not forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery: who guided you through this vast and dreadful wilderness, a land of fiery serpents, scorpions, thirst; who in this waterless place brought you water from the hardest rock; who in this wilderness fed you with manna that your fathers had not known.’
Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 147:12-15,19-20 ©
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O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
or
Alleluia!
O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
Zion, praise your God!
He has strengthened the bars of your gates
he has blessed the children within you.
O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
or
Alleluia!
He established peace on your borders,
he feeds you with finest wheat.
He sends out his word to the earth
and swiftly runs his command.
O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
or
Alleluia!
He makes his word known to Jacob,
to Israel his laws and decrees.
He has not dealt thus with other nations;
he has not taught them his decrees.
O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
or
Alleluia!
Second reading
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1 Corinthians 10:16-17 ©
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That there is only one loaf means that, though we are many, we form one body
The blessing-cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is a communion with the body of Christ. The fact that there is only one loaf means that, though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one loaf.
Sequence
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Lauda, Sion
The Sequence may be said or sung in full, or using the shorter form indicated by the asterisked verses.
Sing forth, O Zion, sweetly sing
The praises of thy Shepherd-King,
In hymns and canticles divine;
Dare all thou canst, thou hast no song
Worthy his praises to prolong,
So far surpassing powers like thine.
Today no theme of common praise
Forms the sweet burden of thy lays –
The living, life-dispensing food –
That food which at the sacred board
Unto the brethren twelve our Lord
His parting legacy bestowed.
Then be the anthem clear and strong,
Thy fullest note, thy sweetest song,
The very music of the breast:
For now shines forth the day sublime
That brings remembrance of the time
When Jesus first his table blessed.
Within our new King’s banquet-hall
They meet to keep the festival
That closed the ancient paschal rite:
The old is by the new replaced;
The substance hath the shadow chased;
And rising day dispels the night.
Christ willed what he himself had done
Should be renewed while time should run,
In memory of his parting hour:
Thus, tutored in his school divine,
We consecrate the bread and wine;
And lo – a Host of saving power.
This faith to Christian men is given –
Bread is made flesh by words from heaven:
Into his blood the wine is turned:
What though it baffles nature’s powers
Of sense and sight? This faith of ours
Proves more than nature e’er discerned.
Concealed beneath the two-fold sign,
Meet symbols of the gifts divine,
There lie the mysteries adored:
The living body is our food;
Our drink the ever-precious blood;
In each, one undivided Lord.
Not he that eateth it divides
The sacred food, which whole abides
Unbroken still, nor knows decay;
Be one, or be a thousand fed,
They eat alike that living bread
Which, still received, ne’er wastes away.
The good, the guilty share therein,
With sure increase of grace or sin,
The ghostly life, or ghostly death:
Death to the guilty; to the good
Immortal life. See how one food
Man’s joy or woe accomplisheth.
We break the Sacrament, but bold
And firm thy faith shall keep its hold,
Deem not the whole doth more enfold
Than in the fractured part resides
Deem not that Christ doth broken lie,
’Tis but the sign that meets the eye,
The hidden deep reality
In all its fullness still abides.
– – – – – –
*Behold the bread of angels, sent
For pilgrims in their banishment,
The bread for God’s true children meant,
That may not unto dogs be given:
Oft in the olden types foreshowed;
In Isaac on the altar bowed,
And in the ancient paschal food,
And in the manna sent from heaven.
*Come then, good shepherd, bread divine,
Still show to us thy mercy sign;
Oh, feed us still, still keep us thine;
So may we see thy glories shine
In fields of immortality;
*O thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,
Our present food, our future rest,
Come, make us each thy chosen guest,
Co-heirs of thine, and comrades blest
With saints whose dwelling is with thee.
Amen. Alleluia.
Gospel Acclamation
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Jn6:51
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Alleluia, alleluia!
I am the living bread which has come down from heaven,
says the Lord.
Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.
Alleluia!
Gospel
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John 6:51-58 ©
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My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink
Jesus said to the crowd:
‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.
Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever;
and the bread that I shall give is my flesh,
for the life of the world.’
Then the Jews started arguing with one another: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ they said. Jesus replied:
‘I tell you most solemnly,
if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you will not have life in you.
Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood
has eternal life,
and I shall raise him up on the last day.
For my flesh is real food
and my blood is real drink.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood
lives in me
and I live in him.
As I, who am sent by the living Father,
myself draw life from the Father,
so whoever eats me will draw life from me.
This is the bread come down from heaven;
not like the bread our ancestors ate:
they are dead,
but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.’
EVANGELIZE OR SACRAMENTALIZE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ DT 8:2-3, 14-16; 1 COR 10:16-17; JN 6:51-58 ]
The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ which we celebrate today was instituted by the Church to help us appreciate the Sacrament of the Eucharist. We have in some ways already celebrated this feast on Holy Thursday when we celebrated the Mass of the Last Supper. However, at that point in time, it was celebrated in view of His passion, death, and resurrection. Of course, the entire Eucharistic celebration which we call the Mass is precisely a memorial of the paschal mystery of our Lord. The Mass consists of a sacrifice, thanksgiving, meal, and the real presence of our Lord.
However, the Church also feels that it is important to give special consideration to the Eucharist itself, even outside the Mass, since the Eucharist remains the real presence of our Lord. The Church wants to encourage us to prolong the adoration of the Eucharist outside of the celebration of the Mass. This would be in continuity with the celebration of the Mass. By extending the worship of the Eucharist outside the Mass, it helps us to continue to contemplate the sacrificial love of our Lord for us, by His death on the cross and the power of His resurrection. Furthermore, knowing that He is truly present in the Eucharist in a par excellence manner, unlike all other religious symbols such as statues and even relics of saints, does help the devotee to focus on Him and feel His love and His presence.
Indeed, the adoration of the Eucharist must flow out of the Mass and flow back into the Mass. Like all other devotions, they cannot be done without being connected with the Mass. Somehow, all devotions, including those of our Blessed Mother and the saints, must flow out of the Mass and lead to a greater appreciation of the Mass. More so, devotion to the Eucharist should make us yearn more to celebrate the Eucharist than just adoring it. So the Eucharist, which Catholics hold to be of utmost importance and the most precious and inestimable sacrament, is critical to a Catholic’s faith. The Eucharist remains a tangible sign of His presence. Spending time before the Lord gives us an assurance of His love.
Receiving Him during the celebration of the Mass brings us not just closer to Him only but makes us feel united with the Church. Indeed, the Eucharist makes us Church by bringing us together. St Paul said, “The blessing-cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is a communion with the body of Christ. The fact that there is only one loaf means that, though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one loaf.” Receiving the Eucharist is more than just the act of receiving Jesus but it is to be in union with our fellow Catholics because Jesus lives in all of us through the Eucharist. This explains why the Church does not allow Catholics who live in mortal or serious sins, or non-Catholics to receive communion because it is more than just the real presence of our Lord; it also celebrates sacramentally our union with Him and with each other. If we are not reconciled with the Church because of sin, then receiving the Eucharist becomes a sign of contradiction.
That being the case, during Covid-19, many are asking what is the value of attending on-line mass and receiving Him spiritually during communion at Mass? In one of his homilies expressing serious concerns about not being able to celebrate the Mass together as a community or to receive the sacraments, Pope Francis reiterated that Mass celebrated on-line and making the act of Spiritual Communion is not the ideal. This of course seems obvious, but not for all. It is not enough to be intimate with Jesus in a personal manner but to be close to the community as well. This is because the Eucharistic celebration is the gathering of the Christian community. The Eucharist is not a private devotion as when we pray the rosary. It has a communitarian dimension of Church, the visible body of Christ.
So whilst the on-line streaming of Masses, and even adoration, are impactful in many ways in allowing people to come closer to the Lord in a personal way, as people have shared and testified, it is never the ideal. We can become very individualistic in our worship. Hence, as Pope Francis says, “this closeness to Christ without community, without the Eucharist, without the people of God assembled together and without the sacraments is dangerous.” The Eucharist is always a community celebration and it is the Eucharist that makes us Church because we are gathered concretely as the Body of Christ. Furthermore, after receiving the Eucharist, we who are united with the Lord now must live in union with our brothers and sisters, and in a special way reach out to our brothers and sisters who are suffering. The Eucharist therefore cannot be simply a private devotion between Jesus and me. It is both personal, private and at the same time, brings me closer to the community.
Yet, it would be wrong to suggest that just because the sacrament of the Eucharist is a tangible sign of our union with Jesus and with the community, we should dispense altogether on-line masses and services. Whilst it is not the perfect way to help people to encounter Jesus as a community, in many ways it fulfills the gap for those who for one reason or another cannot make it for the Eucharistic celebration in the community. Covid-19 has presented the Church with a new way to reach out to those who are at home. Some are immobile, or have left the Church, or because of some illness are afraid to go to Church e.g. those suffering autism. These people are often neglected and marginalized due to their social or physical condition. These are the members that the Church cannot reach out to because they are not there with the community at Mass. They are the unreached. Do we insist that until they come back to Church, we will not reach out to them in other lesser forms?
Ironically, for those who cannot receive the Eucharist sacramentally or attend the Eucharist physically, their union with God can even be more intense than those who do. This is because many of us have taken for granted the Sunday Eucharist. It has become a routine. This is why the Covid-19 has awakened us to the sacramental routine in our faith. “Moses said to the people: He humbled you, he made you feel hunger, he fed you with manna which neither you nor your fathers had known, to make you understand that man does not live on bread alone but that man lives on everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” This Covid-19 has taught us not to rely on our strength, economy and technology, in science and medicine alone. But more importantly, it has helped our Catholics to genuinely yearn for our Lord in the Eucharist which they have often received in a perfunctory manner. By being deprived of Mass as a community for a while and receiving the Eucharist sacramentally, they will learn to appreciate the Eucharist even more and not to take for granted the Eucharist and the Mass.
In fact, greater faith, and a personal disposition is needed to benefit from the on-line services. It actually helps people to pay more attention and to focus without distraction. Whereas on Sundays, although technically we are gathered as a community, the Body of Christ, this oneness can be just apparent. There is no union among us unless it is a small community where we know each other. We come and we go. We fight at the carpark. We reserve places for our friends and make the elderly and those who are physically challenged stand throughout the Mass. So even though it is the ideal way, it does not always bring about the results that are intended. We need not just the sacraments alone, but we need faith as a pre-requisite.
Hence, we need to rethink the use of media and technology in the celebration of the Eucharist in the light of Covid-19. While it is true that on-line streaming of Masses cannot be a substitute for the actual celebration of Masses and the sacraments, nevertheless, it is not without value. In the final analysis, the question that needs to be addressed is whether we want to evangelize our Catholics or simply sacramentalize them. If our Catholics continue to receive the sacraments as a matter of routine without faith, the sacraments become superstitious sacred objects, but do not change lives. Unless we believe in Jesus deeply, receiving the sacrament will not change us.
Only faith, at the end of the day, can change lives. Faith, even without the actual sacraments in extraordinary situations, can help a Catholic to live out the gospel life, but sacraments without faith, even during ordinary times, will not change lives. To find eternal life requires more than just receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist, but equally important is to accept the Word of God in faith. Only by eating His flesh and drinking His blood and hearing the Word of God in faith, can we live forever, in this life on earth and hereafter. So the sacrament, the ordinary way to receive God’s grace is important, but faith is primary, for without faith, the sacraments will not have any effect on us.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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