On this All Souls Day I want you and I to focus on the body of Christ.

The Body of Christ —“ the Church with you and me as its members. The Body of Christ with our deceased relatives, friends, and benefactors as its members. The Body of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

The Body of Christ is what we are and what we are becoming. Each day that we come to Holy Mass we are being transformed. We are transformed in a way that requires us to give up our appearances and our facades. We are transformed in a way that requires us to become what God has always intended for us to be.

When we receive Holy Communion we are changed. We are primarily nourished spiritually. We are made part of Christ. Jesus Christ is taking us unto Himself. This is unlike regular eating, where the food we ingest strictly becomes part of us. At the same time we are fortified by the bread so that the ‘staff of life’ strengthens us for the Holy work ahead of us.

How does this transformation occur? It occurs in the most mysterious and magnificent way, through our reception of our Lord, Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. In his Summa Theologiae (3a.75.1), St Thomas Aquinas addresses the question: ‘Is Christ is really and truly present in the Holy Eucharist, or is He only there in a figurative way, as a sign or symbol.’ St. Thomas’ belief, and ours, is that Jesus Christ is really the Holy Eucharist. He is here body, soul, humanity, and divinity, because Jesus desires to maintain friendship with us. There is no more bread or wine, it is Him.

St. Thomas summed it all up by making several points:

· The charity of Christ led him to take a real body, to become human and unite that body to the Godhead to save us.
· The law of friendship requires that friends should live together in union.
· Jesus promised us his bodily presence.
· Jesus has not left us without his bodily presence in our pilgrimage to heaven.
· Jesus specifically told us, —He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.—

These thoughts from the passages in St. Thomas’ work are truly wonderful. They tell us what we know by instinct. Friends and lovers cherish each other’s bodily presence. Our bodies are the very means of our communion.

Some Protestant churches do not believe in the real presence as we do. Their theology has boiled down the relationship with Christ to an —I and thou— personal communion. The Body of Christ is more than Jesus and me.

The Body of Christ is all of us together. God and I are not alone. I am not alone in my joys, sufferings, happiness, sadness, struggle or triumph. I am joined to Christ and to the entire Christian community everywhere and throughout all time.

Jesus Christ is indeed real and present with us and for us. The bread and cup are his visible body. When Jesus says, —This is my body. This is my blood— He is telling us: —Here I am for you. I love you. I died for you. I forgive you. I fill you with my Spirit. I give you eternal life. Come, come feast upon me. I am the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation.—

Today we conduct this immemorial remembrance for our deceased brothers and sisters. We reaffirm that they are not gone, wiped out of existence, but that they are present here with us spiritually as they pray and intercede for us in heaven.

In the funeral liturgy we remember that those who have died were baptized into the Body of Christ, made members of His Holy Church. We remember too that they ate the Bread of Life and drank from the Cup of eternal salvation.

In the Holy Eucharist we, the Body of Christ, encounter the source of our life and salvation —“ Jesus Christ, God and man. We eat His flesh and drink His blood. We chew on Him and digest Him so we can become more like Him, less like us.

When you approach the Eucharist today, and I encourage you to approach Holy Communion as often as it is available, know that you are purified and sanctified by God’s grace. Know that you are regenerated into our Lord’s very body, and that you are joined to the entire Body of Christ, living and deceased, militant and triumphant.

May our prayers for our beloved dead be blessed and received this day through the merits won for us by Him who is our Lord, Jesus Christ, and through His grace may we all be joined together in the Kingdom of God.

[My special thanks to Al Kimel from the Pontifications Blog for the inspiration for this homily]

Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us,
by letting us be called God’s children;
and that is what we are.

But we’re turning into the Maytag repair man. Our lot is getting very lonely. Being a true Christian, especially in a traditional Catholic/Christian community is not very easy. It takes a special gift of the Holy Spirit to hold true to what is right in the Church.

In the Roman Catholic tradition there is a great battle going on. It is between those who which to re-invent the Church in their own image and those who hold fast to a very traditional, dogmatic way of thinking.

Neither is correct.

I recently read a series of articles in the St. Anthony’s Messenger, a Franciscan magazine. These were effusive articles relating the great things that Vatican II brought about. The commentators and the —everyday people,— selected to write brief observations, were completely one sided in their views. The funny thing was that there was a common thread, besides the ‘this is all great’ part of their message. The common thread was that they all said ‘something is missing’. They couldn’t put their finger on it or describe it. But it was there, a longing for the holy, the sacred.

When you look at our Church, the PNCC, you might observe that its congregations are small. You might notice that its church buildings are not huge cathedrals or modernist monstrosities. You might see churches that speak of holiness in honor of God. You might observe everyone pulling together and cooperative decision making. You might notice a respect for the sacred and a love of democracy.

You might notice —“ the Catholic Church.

Look around you. Look at these walls, this Altar, the windows, the statues, the candles. People are dying alone, without the comfort and love of the Catholic Church they grew up in because all this was done away with. It went into the garbage pile. They are hurt and cannot find their way home. They stay away in anger because they have no home.

On this All Saints Day, the saints are crying. They are calling to the world and saying, we are here, the martyrs and mystics, the doctors and confessors, the virgins, the priests, deacons, and bishops, the holy men and women.

Look around you and give thanks. We are not ultra-modern. We are traditional. We pray. We light candles and use incense. We say novenas and the rosary. We do the Stations of the Cross. We believe in penance, repentance, and forgiveness. We believe Jesus Christ is truly present in the Word and in the Eucharist, and that the Holy Mass is a sacrifice not a holy mess.

I could walk into many churches, go to the tabernacle, pull out the ciborium, throw the Eucharist on the floor and step on it. No one would probably notice or care. Only 30% of Roman Catholics even believe anymore.

Long-time syndicated columnist and editor at the Dallas Morning News, William Murchison describes how Europe has lost its Christian faith.

—If you don’t believe a thing is true, or vital, or relevant, in due course you quit acting as though you did, notwithstanding any sentimental attachment you might have to the outward forms and symbols of the old belief structure…You look elsewhere for satisfaction. Europe has long been looking elsewhere for the satisfactions Christianity once supplied.—

A church as a museum is not a Church. Look at these walls, look at the blending of the old and the new. Look at the democracy and will of the people. No one here threw out the baby with the bathwater. No one here threw out the saints and what they fought for. No one denigrated the ancient and sacred tradition of the Holy, catholic, Church.

When you come here and feel small. When you come and there are only 50, 75, or a hundred people here, remember that it is not the number that counts. Remember that it is whether those who come believe. Whether this is a Church.

Saint John said, —Because the world refused to acknowledge Him, therefore it does not acknowledge us.— We live the beatitudes and hold the faith of the saints. You yourselves are called to be saints. To be those things the world does not want. To be what everyone else modernizes out of existence.

Being poor in spirit and gentle; to mourn and hunger and thirst for what is right; to be merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and persecuted in the cause of right.

Listen again to Saint John:

My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He really is.

May God bless you and May God sustain our PNCC.