Dear St. Theresa family,

Sunday is the day we celebrate the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Eucharist. We do this when statistics tell us that nearly seventy percent of Catholics do not accept the true presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the altar. Pew research reveals that forty-three percent of those who do not believe in the true presence believe that this is what the church teaches.  In other words, while only 1 out of 3 Catholics has a correct understanding of the nature of the Eucharist, another 4 out of 10 understand themselves to believe what they think the church teaches.  It is logical to conclude that the church could do a better job teaching what it believes.  At the same time, there are those who will struggle with such a teaching even if diligently taught. This is not new.  In preparing for preaching this weekend I read Cardinal Mundelein’s 1926 address to the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago.  To an assembled crowd of more than a quarter of a million people Cardinal Mundelein said:  

“This morning a great multitude is stretched here at his feet, greater in numbers that all Judea held; not only the dwellers of this, one of the world’s great cities, but added thereto the thousands, the tens and hundreds of thousands of strangers within our gates, who have come from the north and the south, the east and the west, who have come in ships and trains, in cars and on foot to see and hear the Master as then. Again, they form three great camps. There are those who will not believe, who like those of old asked the question: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Even as then there are those who shut their ears and will not hear; again, there are those who, having heard, turn away and harden their hearts; those who have not known, those who would not hear, those who did not care. Then there were others, the luke-warm among his followers, those who murmured, if not in words, then by their deeds; they too, object, ‘This saying is hard and who can bear it?’

Cardinal Mundelein then went on to describe technological advances that had astonished him since his childhood.  Things like the electric motor, radio, and the general progress of the first quarter of the 20^th century. He talked about how these things were unthinkable before saying that it would have been unreasonable to imagine being able to broadcast his voice as he was doing at that moment to people spread far and wide. But then his speech really caught my attention when he said:

“There are so many restless and unhappy souls in the world about us; the mass of wrecked homes, the great number of bleeding hearts, the growing disrespect for law and order, all point to us that there is something wanting in the life of our people today. May it not be the banishment of the supernatural, the gradually vanishing figure of the real Christ, the God-man, the divine teacher, the lawgiver, the just judge of the universe.  His removal from the school, the fireside and the hearts of men is the underlying cause. Here in the Eucharist, He stands forth, not as a myth, not as a hero in a fairy tale, not as a great figure that exists only in history, but as a definite, positive, living figure, really existing now, even as you and I. To those searchers after truth, we offer no arguments, no proof of this real presence.

Our finite minds stand bewildered before the greatness of this miracle of divine love.”

Here is a preacher who understood that there is and always will be much that eludes our intellectual abilities and challenges our credulity.  I am reminded of what Our Lord said to Thomas the apostle: “Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe.”  The most precious gift of Jesus is his ongoing presence he promised us in the Eucharist.  We cannot hold that it is anything less than what he says it is in the Bible.  “This is my body.”

Grace and peace,

Fr. Larry