¶ Introduction to Corpus Christi
Hello, this is Father John Arnold, and welcome back to Oral Valley Catholic. This weekend is the Feast of Corpus Christi, that is, the Body and Blood of Christ. It is the summit and source of our Catholic faith. And so as we think about this great mystery of the body of Christ that we're called to receive at every Mass, let's take a moment, reflect on the scriptures for this Sunday, the Feast of Corpus Christi, and what they have to say to us.
about both the body and blood of Christ and the high priest, Jesus, risen from the dead and ascended into heaven.
¶ Modern Spiritual Confusion
You have to admit we live in pretty confused time. You know, America isn't necessarily anti-religious. It just has... tremendous confusion about what religion is and the nature of the divine. Just think about what you've experienced as being an American. You can worship the pagan gods, and people do. I've met people who have actually sacrificed to Thor, not Chris Hemsworth. I mean, the ancient god of thunder amongst the Norse.
There's a great appreciation for paganism, and we return to some of the practices of paganism. In some towns, Salem, Massachusetts, for instance, they've erected a temple or a church or a place of worship. For Satan in the town square, they put Ouija boards. I've met and baptized witches who have wanted to become Catholics. And it really is not, I think, a substantial religion.
But there's a lot of people who are involved in witchcraft, the occult, the new age, which is very closely related to the ideas behind witchcraft, which is the...
¶ Sacraments vs. Magic
The whole sensibility that we're in control. See, the big difference between magic and a sacrament is this. In magic, the human being uses the natural world and tries to manipulate it to achieve the purposes of... the witch or the warlock. The sacrament's exactly the opposite. God uses the things of nature, water, olive oil, wheat, grapes, bread and wine, and he uses it for the sanctification of his people.
When a Catholic priest presides at one of God's sacraments, baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, marriage, the bishop at holy orders, the sacrament of reconciliation or last rites or the anointing of the... sick. He is using the power of God. He sits in the person of Christ, the one high priest, and he uses nature in the way that God has instructed us to use nature for God's purposes.
Exactly the opposite of what magic is. You can also be a materialist. The idea that there is nothing more significant to you than a bunch of atoms whirling around. And then when you die, your atoms will simply... simply go back into the ground. Your brain is simply electrical impulses, some chemical or biological interactions. And that's what Beethoven and Mozart or the poetry of Dana Gioia or William Wordsworth is. It's just some kind of epiphenomena, as some say it, of...
¶ Christ's Eternal High Priesthood
of a completely materialistic world. Obviously, Christianity is very different than any of those things. And Christianity is true. It is by far and away the most plausible way of understanding in a holistic way. what it means to be born, to live, and to die as a human being. All of creation is an act of God's love, and it comes into being through God's wisdom. And the Gospel of John tells us that the gospel...
of wisdom, the person of wisdom, is Jesus Christ, the light that comes into the world. And so in a very important way, priesthood exists and pre-exists creation. That when Jesus is, in the book of Hebrews, described as the great high priest, it's a priesthood that transcends all of creation. I'll talk about it a little more, but the Catholic priesthood is not an extension of the Mosaic priesthood. The book of Leviticus, for instance, in the book of the Torah, the first five.
books of the Old Testament. The Catholic priesthood is a ministerial priesthood that makes present the high priest. There is really only one priest in all the world, and that is Jesus Christ, and he's an eternal high priest. The presbyterate, I am a presbyter, we are his ministers. And so when the priest celebrates Mass and says the words of consecration or forgives...
Sins in the confessional, for instance. He is in the person of Christ. And so you can make choices in America about what you're willing to believe, but just because you're willing to believe it and you believe it sincerely does not mean it. that it's true. Truth is, in fact, a person, and that person acts through his sacraments and through his word and the scriptures. So let's take a look at all the readings for the Feast of... Corpus Christi, the body and blood of Christ, and talk about
¶ Melchizedek and Ancient Priesthood
this as the great sign of the work of the high priest that continues even after he ascended to heaven. So let's turn to the first reading. The Feast of Corpus Christi, in some ways, bats cleanup for all of the feasts that we've celebrated from Christmas through the Easter season, the Feast of the Ascension, Pentecost. the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, this is the cutting edge, the point of the spear of the Christian message in the world.
The readings that the church has picked illustrate the importance of Christ's priesthood, why it's different, what it does, and then what it means to come up and receive Eucharist at Mass on Sunday. The first reading for the Feast of Corpus Christi is from Genesis chapter 14. In those days Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, and being a priest of God Most High,
He blessed Abram with these words. Blessed be Abram by God most high, the creator of heaven and earth. Blessed be God most high, who delivered your foes into your hand. Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. So Melchizedek and Abram, this is hundreds of years before Moses. gives the Mosaic law and establishes the priesthood, which we're familiar with, from the tabernacle, from Moses.
exercise the priesthood, King David and Solomon building the first temple, Ezra and Nehemiah building the second temple, and then the temple that's there, which is a kind of a refurbished version of that second temple. Jesus' day, which was destroyed by the Roman armies, the Roman legions with their big eagles on top of their standards in about the year 70, some 37 years after Jesus' crucifixion.
Maybe 40 years, depending on when year it actually happened. But this story of Melchizedek is about... a priest of God Most High that Genesis refers to. And so there's a priesthood that exists in the world, according to the Old Testament, before Moses in the book of Leviticus. and Moses' brother Aaron becomes the great high priest for the people of Israel. There is that priesthood under the covenant, but that is not the priesthood that is carried forward by Christ and his church.
And so it's interesting because it reflects very much on Jesus' choices at Last Supper. So when Melchizedek comes out to bless Abram, and Abram is returning from a war he fought with. four adversaries called the Four Kings. He did that to save his nephew Lot and bring him back. Melchizedek came out and he offered gifts of bread and wine. Now I've commented on this before, but these are gifts that Adam and Eve could have eaten and drank. Because remember, Adam and Eve were supposed to...
feed on the seed of every seed-bearing plant and the fruit of every seed-bearing fruit. That's obviously one way of looking at that is bread and wine. Interestingly, also, if you remember, it's probably the sacrifice that Cain made that was rejected by God. But here's Melchizedek, who is a true priest who does not have murder in his heart. And he brings out this gift.
And so we have to think that when we read in the book of Hebrews that Jesus is a priest in the order of the priesthood of Melchizedek. Jesus is not from a priestly line in the people of Israel. That would have been in the tribe of the Levites. Mary's cousin Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah and John the Baptist were probably...
all out of the Levitical line. Mary may or may not have had some background in it, but it's really not directly referred to in the scriptures. In fact, when the genealogies are written about Jesus' genealogy, it's always through the... father. And that's from the line of David. And David was not a Levite. David was from the tribe of Judah. And so why Jesus is a Judean is a...
¶ Messianic Priesthood and Last Supper
is the Messiah. But the idea of the priest of Melchizedek is built up in the second reading, which is from Psalm 110. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. You are a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek. The scepter of your power the Lord will stretch forth from Zion. Rule in the midst of your enemies. You are a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek.
Yours is princely power in the day of your birth and holy splendor before the day star like the dew I have begotten you. You are a priest forever in the light of Melchizedek. The Lord is sworn and he will not repent. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. You're a priest forever in the light of Melchizedek. Think about what that psalm is talking about. And what it conflates is two different offices in the land of Israel.
order of the king and the high priest. They're not the same person. Although David did form priestly functions in 2 Samuel, I think it is. Generally, the priesthood and the kingship were separate things in the Old Testament. So when Psalm 110 is referring to someone who's a priest forever in the light of Melchizedek, it's referring to them in both the terms of kingship, victory, and in terms of priesthood.
not really referring to either the kings of Israel or Judah. And so it's a messianic psalm. And remember, one of the things we Catholics have always relied on is... the priesthood and the kingship that's called in the Old Testament is most perfectly filled by Christ because of his birth in Bethlehem. That's the Christmas reference because that was the city of... where David lived with his father Jesse and his brothers and was a shepherd.
prophecy of the Messiah being born in Bethlehem was fulfilled that way. But Jesus' priesthood is revealed when he offers himself on the cross. And why do you know he offers himself on the cross as a sacrifice? Because the night before, he sat down with his disciples and he took bread. He took it, he blessed it, he broke it, and he gave it. And he said, this is my body.
This is my blood. And that's the roots of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Those are the very words that the priest in Persona Christi at Mass uses when he is consecrating the bread and wine. that the people have brought to the altar. He does it, and it's interesting. He's like the narrator explaining what Jesus did until he gets to the moment of the consecration. And then he says, Another priest, this is my body, which will be given up for you. This is the blood of the new covenant.
This is my blood, the blood of the new covenant. And so whatever Catholic priest is saying it, whether it's our bishop or your parish priest, he's speaking in the first person. But nobody in the church believes that. It's John Arnold's body and blood. Well, what good would that do anybody? But that Christ himself is ministering to his people because he does what Jesus did. He took, he blessed, he broke, he gave.
¶ Eucharistic Practice and Community
And so the first written Christian record of the celebration of the Eucharist is probably from 54 AD, which is maybe... 24, 21, 24 years after Jesus's passion and death and resurrection. And in 1 Corinthians, Paul is writing to the Corinthians, and he's writing about some of the abuses. community.
There were divisions. The Corinthians always seemed to be fighting with each other, which proves that they are in fact a Catholic parish, that some of the stuff they do is just loony, which is pretty much consistent with the history of us. Catholicism in the last 2,000 years, Jesus is not calling a perfect people to the Eucharist. He's calling some pretty broken people to the Eucharist. And so when St. Paul is writing this section from 1 Corinthians...
chapter 11, which I'll read in a moment. He's talking about being properly prepared to receive the Eucharist. One of the things that he takes on is that the wealthier members of the community bring food. enjoy their own meal, and they don't share with the poorer members of the community. Because the idea of community is that we're all in, and that is not what Paul is observing in the Corinthians.
remind them of Jesus' example, especially, you know, in the Gospel of John, where if you remember at Holy Thursday, we read the Gospel where Jesus removed his outer clothing, his tunic, and he got on his knees. washed everybody's feet. The purpose of power in the church, the purpose of power outside the church, is for service of others. We expect the people in Washington or in Phoenix to serve us, whatever the state capital is.
That's the point of what government is. The great disappointment is when power is misused to serve the people who actually have power, which is exactly what Jesus criticizes throughout the four Gospels. and the apostles likewise. And so that in the church, the power of the bishop, the power of the priest or the deacon, the power of people that run committees in parishes, it's all for service of others.
And if you lose sight of that, you lose sight of something foundational about being a Christian. And so this is St. Paul in the first century. Just a couple decades after Jesus' death, the church is established. It's celebrating the Eucharist. If you remember in the Act of the Apostles, it said in the very beginning that the apostles were meeting and they were breaking bread together.
It was of the Eucharist they were celebrating. And so here's the reading from 1 Corinthians 11. Brothers and sisters, I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night he was handed over. took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until the end.
¶ Eucharist, Sin, and Reconciliation
he comes. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. So Catholics know that our theological explanation. of the Eucharist includes the understanding of transubstantiation, substance, standing under. And so standing under the appearances, the accidents of bread and wine is the very... person of Jesus Christ, not an historical relic from 2,000 years ago, but Christ raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, the living among the dead in the Eucharist. And then if you think about the Eucharist,
and I talked about the gifts of Melchizedek, that it echoes back to the book of Genesis. But also, if you remember, and Jesus taught this in John chapter 6, which actually starts with the feast. of the people out in the wilderness where Jesus does the same miracle that's going to be referred to in the gospel, that Jesus is bred.
is to remind us of the sustenance that manna gave to the people as they wandered through the wilderness following moses to the promised land and in john chapter 6 he tells us teaches us that in the same way that manna was sustenance for the people of Israel as they escaped slavery in Egypt and made their way to the promised land, so his body, the bread, is heavenly.
bread. It is sustenance for us, just as manna came from heaven in a much greater sense. The Eucharist comes from heaven, and that body is supposed to be what? helps us to endure in the christian life as we are released from not slavery in egypt but slavery to sin and then prepared for life eternal with god in heaven then the second part St. Paul talks about, is in the same way also the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. To remember somebody is to make the whole of Jesus's ministry present. Not just what he's doing now, but what he's always done for us from the time of his birth, his conception in our Blessed Lady's womb, through his ministry with the apostles when he walked with them just like he walks with us.
us to his own self-priestly offering on the altar of the cross, where he is the lamb of sacrifice and the priest offering the lamb, but that the blood reminds us of what it says in the book of Revelation. that we are washed clean in the blood of Christ, that it's the sacrifice that was given for our sins. And so this is... obviously, the sustenance of early Christian preaching, that the Eucharist is both sustenance for the journey, but it's also about being freed from sin.
Jesus died for your sins on the cross. And then when you come to the Eucharist, you take part in that sacrificial offering to free. Catholics in the confessional... pretty often tell me that they go to Eucharist in an unworthy manner. And I say, you know, join the club. It's hard to be worthy of the sacrifice of Christ. But I think they're confusing some things.
You know, grave sin is something you should take to the priest. Some grave sin, especially of a sexual nature, often is compulsive sin. I went to really a very good workshop. on this put on by a very intelligent priest and a psychologist about the roots of, say, pornography use and masturbation as being really compulsive behaviors. which is...
the matter, as it were, the substance of what a mortal sin is. It has to be intentional, knowing, and voluntary. And I think if you examine some of your behaviors, they're really not... any of those things. Human beings have a lot of impulses and compulsions that they have difficulty controlling. And part of kind of growing in holiness is learning how to control your minds, your impulses, your compulsions. It doesn't help.
to think about them as mortal sin because as the catechism says mortal sin is basically intentional knowing and voluntary it's maliciousness i've mentioned i think in once in my priestly career, and maybe I missed it on other occasions, but one guy who was malicious, and he came in purposely to make a bad confession. to uh
appeal to someone else who was watching him go to confession. And he wanted me to know. I think I'd been a priest for about two weeks. And I look back and I think Satan was visiting me in the confessional because this was a malicious guy who just mocked the Catholic. Okay, I'm willing to believe that that's the sum and substance of what mortal sin is. He knew what he was rejecting. He intended to reject it, and it wasn't compulsive. He was just doing it out of...
some kind of weird, malicious glee. This is not most sin that Catholics bring into the confessional. So I urge people to avail themselves of the Eucharist, but also the sacrament of reconciliation. And the key to the sacrament of reconciliation reconciliation in my judgment, and I think it's a good judgment, is that it should be a discipline.
If people simply have compulsive behavior, and then they compulsively go to confession three days later, and then they go to Eucharist, and then the same sin two days later, and then they back in the confessional three days later. I think we're missing something really important about the nature of sin and what mortal sin is. It is true that they have a big problem. It's a warning sign to them as to where their life is.
is and how they need to get control of their minds and make thoughtful, intelligent, voluntary choices towards virtue. But to call it mortal sin, I don't think that fits the definition that's in the catechism. And I urge people that are struggling with compulsive sin to make a discipline of going to confession monthly.
don't tie it to simply a fall because it becomes part of the ritual of sin. It just becomes, well, I can do this and I'll just go to confession. It's the wrong way to think about it. Instead, if it's a discipline, well, we... as disciples have to have a discipline, which means if our sinful life is compulsive and impulsive, let's not make that our sacramental life. Let's make choices.
And then hopefully the darker portions of our life will become under our control and we can make more progress in the spiritual life. And so it's really interesting, 1 Corinthians.
¶ Gospel of Luke and Church Organization
Because the first person that, after the apostolic age, that gives us an accounting of what mass is like is Justin Martyr, feast day on June 1. He says that they always gather on the Lord's Day. That would be the first day of the week, Sunday. They have a presider. They read the scriptures. They celebrate the Eucharist. They take up a collection for the poor, especially the needy in their own. own community and it sounds a lot like the same
format that we have for the Catholic Mass that we celebrate under the Novus Ordo in the Roman Catholic Church. And so the Eucharist sustenance for the journey. wash clean in the blood of the Lamb, and that you receive... the completeness of the Eucharist, the holistic nature of the sacrament, if you either receive the body or the blood. So if you have a gluten allergy, then receive the blood.
you are concerned about a common cup, talk to the priest and see if there's some accommodation he can make for you. We've done that for parishioners here at St. Mark. And so I'd like now to go to the gospel. And this is the gospel. from the Gospel of Luke.
And it's Luke chapter 9. Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God. He healed those who needed to be cured. As the day was drawing to a close, the twelve approached him and said, Dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms. and find lodging and provisions, for we are in a deserted place here. He said to them, Give them some food yourselves. They replied, Five loaves and two fish are all we have, unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people.
There numbered about 5,000. Then he said to his disciples, have them sit down in groups of about 50. They did so and made them all sit down. Then taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them.
to the disciples to set before the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied. And when the leftover fragments were picked up, they filled 12 wicker baskets, just enough for the 12 tribes of Israel. But there's a few things about this story that I want to point out that are eucharistic in nature first look at what it says he says he took he blessed he broke he gave and if you look at paul's
letter to 1 Corinthians. On the night he was handed over, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and then gave it. This is the Eucharistic action. And so clearly this... multiplications of loaves and fishes in the wilderness, though it's bread and fish. points towards the Last Supper and what he will do. And so it gives this larger context of what the Eucharist ought to mean to you and me. And then the other thing I want to point out, did he notice he sent his disciples?
disciples, and he told them to have them sit down in groups of about 50. So he organized them, which is exactly what Moses did in the desert, because Jesus is the new Moses. But more than that, it's exactly... what the church does we're organized into diocese and parishes so that the people can be ministered to by God's ministers that is the presbyterate and the bishop which are the two of the orders of
of holy orders. For those who think that the gospel is just something that's going to be taken into my heart and I'm going to do on my own, this is not the gospel. The institution of the church is built into the gospel. that Jesus' disciples are supposed to organize the people so their needs can be more clearly ministered to.
And so what do we have in the readings? We have Jesus' ancient priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek. We have the Davidic and the priestly put together in the Messiah, which is exactly who Jesus is, as the book of Hebrews. say in all of the Gospels and the writings of St. Paul, that it's about the organization of the church into groups that can be ministered to by Jesus' disciples, his presbyteroi, his ministers. interesting things about the presbyterate is it's a word that the
the Greek Christians used. They had a word for priest, which was heroes. That would be the Greek word. Kohan would be the Hebrew word. But they pick a new one because Jesus is priest. is not from the Mosaic Law, and it's not like the pagan priests. It's something new. It's what I've described. And so, in the conclusion of Oro Valley Catholic, I'd like to give you a good takeaway.
¶ Living the Eucharistic Life
This part I will call my own two cents. So think about the sacramental practice of the Catholic Church. Jesus takes you from the world when he baptizes you. He blesses you with the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son. you. That's the sacrament of confirmation we talked about at Pentecost.
This is the hard part. He starts breaking you down, right? I spent a little time talking about sin and compulsive sin. We got to leave stuff behind. We got to get control of ourselves. We got to be able to. control ourselves to give ourselves to Christ. A man or a woman can't control themselves, can't give themselves in marriage. Well, you can't give themselves to Christ either. Why? A good discipline, a penance, and a life of charity.
he gives and yes he gives us the eucharist but when we become another christ That means we're given to the world. We become men and women for other men and women. In marriage, the priest is obvious. He's supposed to serve his parish. Hopefully they do.
I try to. A husband's supposed to serve his wife. A wife is supposed to serve her husband. Mom and dad are supposed to serve the kids. The family's supposed to serve the community, especially the poor, because you're given away, just like the Eucharist. St. Augustine had this great line. You know, we say when you come up to Eucharist, the body of Christ or the blood of Christ, St. Augustine said, receive who you are.
You know, in a world where we have all these identities, where you can be a pagan worshiper of Thor or a Wiccan witch, or you can just decide that you're just a group of atoms in more or less disorganization. to be another christ that's what the eucharist is it's why i think of eucharist in some sense is like batting cleanup for the whole mystery of what we've discussed through lent
Easter and these feasts of Pentecost, the Most Holy Trinity, and now Corpus Christi. We are people for others, and what we have to give is Christ. That is where you... Live out your vocation as a priest. Because in the Old Testament, there are different levels. There was the high priest and there were the Levites. And so it is in the Catholic Church. Welcome. Welcome.
Take, bless, break, give. This is the Eucharist in you. This is another episode of Oro Valley Catholic. Hopefully see you again next week.