HAPPY SUNDAY (AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!)

HAPPY SUNDAY (AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!)

It happens every seven years.  The second greatest feast of the liturgical season falls on a Sunday.  Sunday, of course, is the primordial celebration of the Church.  It is the weekly solemnity and takes precedence over almost every other feast.  In fact, the number one feast of Christians is Easter, and it always falls on a Sunday.  Every Sunday is, in fact, a little Easter, a celebration of the death and Resurrection of the Lord.  But this Sunday the focus of the liturgy is on the event that made Easter possible – the Birth of the Savior.  Without Christmas we could not have Easter.

In every Mass we adore Christ truly present.  He becomes present to us in the Eucharistic elements, inviting us to receive his Body and Blood under the form of bread and wine.  He is there in the holy Sacrament, in both his human and divine nature, but for our sake he veils himself so that we may not run and hide.  In the first chapter of the Book of Revelation the apostle John describes his vision of Jesus.  Christ’s voice was “as loud as a trumpet,” his hair was “white as wool or as snow, and his eyes were like a fiery flame.  His feet were like polished brass refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing water…A sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth and his face shone like the sun at its brightest.  When I caught sight of him, I fell down at his feet as though dead.  He touched me with his right hand and said, ‘Do not be afraid…” (Rev 1:10-17).  John was the beloved disciple who had laid his head on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper.  Yet, when he saw him in his glory he could not stand, and Christ had to reach out and touch him so that he would survive.

We ought to be thankful that Jesus comes to us in humble appearance, for we creatures of earth could not survive the vision of his glory without special assistance.  Today Jesus appears to us in the Holy Eucharist, hiding his glory, as he hid it from Mary and Joseph when he was born.  If they had seen him in his glory they could not have laid him in a manger.  Jesus revealed to them only his infant body, but he also gifted them with faith, and they knew that he was more than a boy.  In the Mass, through the words of the priest, the Holy Spirit changes the substance of bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood, without changing the outward appearances.  This double miracle we call transubstantiation, where the essence, or substance, is changed without affecting how the bread and wine look, taste, and feel.  All this so that we may have faith like that of Mary and Joseph, and more than that, so that we may eat of the Sacrament and be saved!  “He who eats this Bread will live forever” (Jn 6:58).

When we adore the Holy Eucharist, we look as did Mary and Joseph look at the baby Jesus, in faith seeing more than his humanity.  We see beyond the appearance of bread and wine to the reality of the divine Person of Jesus.  However, the body of Jesus which Mary and Joseph saw and adored was not mere appearance, it was essentially Christ, who had fully become man while remaining fully divine.  He will forever be God and man, for he rose in the body after death had separated his human soul from his human body.  His human soul was united again with his human body, and he will ever exist in a glorified body, shining in the City of God: “The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb” (Rev. 21:23).

Christ came as a child so that he could be loved and adored by Mary and Joseph, and all of humanity.  He came not as a symbol but as a true man.  The condescension which he showed in his Nativity he continues to practice in the consecration of the Mass, for the same reason – human salvation.  The Eucharist is more than a symbol, it is reality, as real as the child in the manger.  “Every time this mystery is celebrated, ‘the work of our redemption is carried on’ and we ‘break the one bread that provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ” (Catechism #1405).

What Christ did in becoming man he does in becoming Eucharist.  He humbles himself in order that he may be adored and received by his creatures.  With joy he anticipates that, by the new creation he will make us to be, we will see him in all his beauty, of which John caught a glimpse in his revelations.  Then we will have no fear, only love and gratitude.  At that time we will give to Jesus the same adoration we give him now, but it will be greater and more free, and our worship will be perfect, for “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2).