Fr. Simon's Letter - June 6, 2021

The feast of Corpus Christi is the last Sunday in the long festal period of the liturgical year. It began with Ash Wednesday, reached a pinnacle at Easter and continued through to Pentecost. Next Sunday, we return to Ordinary Time in the Church. This feast of Corpus Christi offers us a moment in which to look back on it all, and to give thanks for it all.

Gratitude is an abiding thing. You aren’t grateful if you just say ‘thanks’ and forget it. You are grateful when you spend time consciously being grateful for what has been given to you and what you have. You savor it. You relish it. It is a powerful and ongoing experience. 

I think the feast of Corpus Christi is appropriate for this. The Lord’s Supper isn’t just something that Jesus did and that we simply remember. It is something that creates, recreates and sustains our living union with the crucified risen One and binds us to each other through him. What we are grateful for is not just in the past, it is still happening, now. It will never stop.

We do give thanks to God for the whole mystery of it. But we are not the only ones giving thanks. Jesus also gives thanks. ‘While they were eating, he took bread. Giving thanks he broke it and gave it to them…He took the cup, and giving thanks, he gave it to them.’ He is the one who has always been giving thanks. He is not casually grateful because someone has given him food and drink. He is grateful for God’s call to him to give himself as food and drink to us. He thanks God for letting the bread be his body for us – his body which gives us new life. He thanks God for letting the wine be his blood for us, as we drink it and enter the covenant. He is always giving thanks. 

Giving thanks was a way of life for God’s chosen people in the Old Testament. Being a grateful people is what sets us apart. As we move towards a full reopening and return to normalcy, I invite you to return to worshipping in-person in the basilica. The Eucharist is the best way we can give thanks to God. Let us make gratitude the prayer of our heart, for gratitude is the heart of all prayer.

Blessings!!