Homily for Sunday, 23 June 2019– The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

Readings of the day: Genesis 14:18-20; Psalm 110:1, 2, 3, 4; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 9:11b-17

This homily was given at the Hermance Family Chapel of St. Basil the Great at St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY.

Have any of us ever received a gift from somebody, or has somebody ever done a good deed for us that we felt we could never possibly repay adequately?

This would happen regularly when I ministered in Colombia, among the poor of Cali and Santa Marta, where the Basilians have a parish and school and had a novitiate house. The people would be so grateful for any good deed or anything we could give them, and even simply for our presence as Basilians among them, that they would often say to us, to mean that they did not have anything to offer us in return for what we had given them, “Dios te pague” (“May God repay you”). More recently, Fr. Paul English, my brother Basilian and a graduate of St. John Fisher College (with whom some of us may be familiar), who knows several Colombian seminarians, both our own Basilian brothers and seminarians of dioceses in which he has served, has occasionally added humorously to his hello or goodbye greetings to these seminarians: “Dios te pegue” (“May God smack you”)!

Our reading this morning from the Book of Genesis places both the king of Salem, Melchizedek, and Abram (later Abraham) in a Dios te pague moment. In Genesis, just before the reading we hear today, four kings who were Abram’s enemies had been making war against kings who were Abram’s allies, including Melchizedek. Even Abram’s nephew, Lot, had been taken captive by one of the enemy kings. Abram pursues Lot’s captors until he is victorious in favor of Melchizedek and his other allied kings, ending the war and recovering Lot and the other captives. Interestingly, the name of Salem, Melchizedek’s kingdom, derives from the same Hebrew root as does shalom. Like many words in ancient languages, shalom, which is usually translated to English as “peace”—so we could think of Melchizedek as a figure representing peace who, in our first reading today, has in fact just won victory and peace, ending a disastrous war—has a greater range of meaning than we often realize. Shalom can mean peace, but also wholeness or completeness, harmony, or prosperity. It may also take on the meaning of a simpler greeting like hello or goodbye. If we were to translate shalom in this idiomatic greeting sense into Spanish, we might say, Dios te pague (“May God repay you”), although hopefully not, unless with good humor, Dios te pegue (“May God smack you”)!

Our reading today from Genesis places us on the scene of a meeting of two representatives of shalom, Melchizedek, king of Salem (or perhaps, appropriately, king of “shalom”), and Abram. This meeting between Melchizedek and Abram, after which Abram has returned goods and prisoners taken by their enemies in the war they have just won, is a shalom moment; a Dios te pague moment.

To thank Abram, what does Melchizedek offer him but simple bread and wine? Melchizedek realizes quickly that he is unable to offer Abram any appropriate gift for having saved his kingdom and his people from the enemy kings who had attacked him and taken his goods and people captive. So Melchizedek offers Abram simple bread and wine, accompanied by a blessing of these gifts. Melchizedek’s offering to Abram of bread and wine, with a blessing, may call to our minds what we do every time we celebrate Mass; every time we celebrate our Eucharist (a Greek-derived word that means “thanksgiving”), especially on this feast focusing on the gifts of the Eucharist, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Like Melchizedek, we offer bread and wine because we can offer no more. When we bring bread and wine to the altar during our Eucharist, we bless it. The priest blesses the bread and wine with a prayer that is often silent, especially at Sunday Mass, but a prayer that hearkens back to Jewish table blessing prayers: “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: Fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life… Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the wine we offer you: Fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink.”

And then, through our Eucharistic celebration, our offering of bread and wine to God because nothing we might offer to God measures up to God’s goodness to us, something altogether miraculous happens before our eyes: This blessed bread and wine, our all-too-little gift to God, becomes “for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God chooses this simple bread and wine, “work of human hands,” as the sacramental means by which God offers himself, God’s Son, really, truly, and fully to us. This becomes our Dios te pague moment: “May God repay you.”

More than we could ever repay God, God “pays” us with his very self, really, truly, and fully, in our Eucharist, under the form of simple bread and wine. God’s Son Jesus Christ has been offering himself really, truly, and fully since the night he freely accepted being “handed over” in an act of betrayal by one of his own apostles; an act of denial by another; an act of fearful fleeing from Jesus’ passion and death by still others. On that night, Jesus offered us his very self really, truly, and fully: “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me… This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” This deepens our Dios te pague moment and projects it into our history, as it becomes our Church’s celebration “in remembrance” of Christ’s passion and death, until he returns at the end of time.

But this first Dios te pague moment in which Jesus hands himself to us; this Dios te pague moment now projected into our history as Church, did not happen without any previous sign to prepare us for the moment when Christ gave himself to us under the form of bread and wine. This preparatory sign of Christ’s real, true, and full self-offering to us first at the Last Supper is recounted to us in the Gospel we hear today from Luke.

Any sign, any miracle, properly-speaking, is not only a nature-defying action of God, but it involves our action. At the Last Supper, Jesus said to his Apostles as he handed himself over to them, to us, really, truly, and fully: “Do this in memory of me.” What, then, are we to do in memory of him? What could we do; what could we offer God that could measure up to God’s real, true, and full gift to us of his very self?

Nothing we could offer could ever measure up to God’s offering of God’s very self to us: This is precisely the point of the Last Supper. This is precisely the point of Jesus’ miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes of which we hear from Luke today. Still, Jesus says to the Twelve, who have asked him to “dismiss the crowd” following them to buy themselves some much-needed rest and quiet: “Give them some food yourselves.”

This, without a doubt, would have caught Jesus’ disciples off guard. They were unprepared to “give them some food” themselves, out of the little they had to offer; out of their own poverty. For the Twelve, this was not only their Dios te pague moment—“May God repay you”—but, with all the due gentleness and good humor of the Son of God, it was Jesus’ Apostles’ Dios te pegue moment: “May God smack you.”

“Give them some food yourselves.” In other words, Jesus says to us, offer what you are able out of your poverty, and I will multiply it beyond your wildest imagination. But I will wait to multiply your gift; I will wait to work a miracle until you are confronted with your poverty, your inadequacy in offering any gift that could possibly measure up to God’s real, true, and full offering of self. I will wait until you are confronted, “smacked,” with having to bless and offer simple bread and wine, or five loaves and two fish for five thousand people.

I will wait until your Dios te pague moment meets a Dios te pegue moment. Give one another and the world “some food yourselves.” “Do this in remembrance of me.” Offer this world shalom, and only then will I multiply your “work of human hands” beyond your wildest imagination.