"We are the Church of the Eucharist"

Bishop Joseph McFadden: Inaugural Homily from Rocco Palmo on Vimeo.

via Whispers in the Loggia

A Pledge of Future Glory

Every once in a while you hear a homily that takes its inspiration from a hymn. Here is one given a couple of weeks ago by a grad school professor of mine, Fr. Joseph Komonchak of the Archdiocese of New York, at the parish where he helps out on Sundays, Blessed Sacrament, in NW Washington DC.

..St. Augustine said that every eucharist is a celebration of the marriage between Christ and his Church, that is, between Christ and us. In any case, the Mass is not something that anyone of us is doing alone. We are here with others, enjoying what they enjoy, with the joy greater, not lesser, for being shared with others, receiving what they received...

With all the powers my poor Heart hath

The Adoremus Hymnal contains an abbreviated version of Richard Crashaw's unusually free, unusually brilliant translation of St. Thomas Aquinas' hymn to the Eucharist, Adoro Te Devote.


With all the powers my poor Heart hath
Of humble love and loyal Faith,
Thus low (my hidden life!) I bow to Thee
Whom too much love hath bowed more low for me.
Down down, proud sense! Discourses die!
Keep close, my soul’s inquiring eye!
Nor touch nor taste must look for more
But each sit still in his own Door.

Your ports are all superfluous here,
Save that which lets in faith, the ear.
Faith is my skill. Faith can believe
As fast as love new laws can give.
Faith is my force. Faith strength affords
To keep pace with those powerful words.
And words more sure, more sweet, than they,
Love could not think, truth could not say.

O let Thy wretch find that relief
Thou didst afford the faithful thief.
Plead for me, love! Allege and show
That faith has farther, here, to go,
And less to lean on. Because then
Though hid as GOD, wounds writ Thee man.
Thomas might touch; none but might see
At least the suffering side of Thee;
And that too was Thy self which Thee did cover,
But here even that’s hid too which hides the other.

Sweet, consider then, that I
Though allowed nor hand nor eye
To reach at Thy loved face; nor can
Taste Thee GOD, or touch Thee MAN,
Both yet believe; and witness Thee
My LORD too and my GOD, as loud as He.
Help, Lord, my faith, my hope increase;
And fill my portion in Thy peace.
Give love for life; nor let my days
Grow, but in new powers to Thy name and praise.

O dear memorial of that death
Which lives still, and allows us breath!
Rich, royal food! Bountiful BREAD!
Whose use denies us to the dead;
Whose vital gust [taste] alone can give
The same leave both to eat and live;
Live ever Bread of loves, and be
My life, my soul, my surer self to me.

O soft self-wounding Pelican!
Whose breast weeps Balm for wounded man.
Ah this way bend Thy benign flood
To a bleeding Heart that gasps for blood:
That blood, whose least drops sovereign be
To wash my worlds of sins from me.

Come love! Come LORD! and that long day
For which I languish, come away;
When this dry soul those eyes shall see,
And drink the unsealed source of Thee,
When glory’s sun faith’s shades shall chase,
And for Thy veil give me Thy FACE. Amen.

Found among the excellent hymns here.

Psalms at Communion

Communion time is the perfect place to make a small but important change in music programming. Instead of singing a hymn from the hymnal, try singing a Psalm that has some relationship to the Eucharist.

Examples include:

• Taste and see the goodness of the Lord
• The Lord is my light and my salvation
• The Lord is my shepherd

Many others are possible. On special days, consider using biblical canticles that are arranged in refrain-verse format, such as the Magnificat on a Marian feast, the Benedictus on a Feast of St. John the Baptist. Last week, for the Baptism of the Lord, we sang, "You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation."

Have the cantor intone a refrain; the people respond, then the cantor sings the verses, much like a responsorial psalm. The people can sing this refrain while processing to Communion, like those on pilgrimage. No book or rehearsals are necessary.

This is a very easy option for Masses with or without a choir and I believe that it will have great spiritual benefit for the people.

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ

Sequence of the Mass: Lauda, Sion ("Sion, Lift Thy Voice And Sing")

Lauda, Sion, Salvatorem,
Lauda ducem et pastorem
In hymnis et canticis.
Quantum potes, tantum aude:
Quia major omni laude
Nec laudare sufficis.

Sion, lift thy voice and sing:
Praise thy Savior and thy King;
Praise with hymns thy Shepherd true:
Dare thy most to praise Him well;
For He doth all praise excel;
None can ever reach His due.

More

And, as sung by the Dominican Nuns of Summit, New Jersey

Love of the Hidden God

Love is the act of willed sight. Love acknowledges realities hidden beneath the cloak of appearance: the good in the apparently evil, the beautiful in the apparently worthless, a friend in the apparent enemy. Love is a decision to accept the shining and good, but hidden, reality of the other. Goodness is part of everyone and everything that is. The lover knows this, accepts it, and acts upon it.

The Eucharist tells of this love in two ways, which can be considered according to their directionality. First, God loves us. "Love consists in this: not that we have loved God but God has loved us." In the sacrifice and presence of God in Christ in the Eucharist we are given the primary example of loving what is hidden. Human worth has been obscured by sin, yet God acknowledges the hidden good in us. "It is precisely in this that God shows his love for us, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us ." In the intimate union of God with humanity in the Incarnation, we feel our true worth, which is not what we have made ourselves to be, but what God plans to make us. In the Eucharist, God expresses and effects a transformation which will show forth the holiness which we have hidden under our sinfulness. Second, in the Eucharist we are given an opportunity to love the hidden God: "Truly with thee God is hidden, the God of Israel, the savior." In this life, we can be distracted by an image of a harsh God because of the presence of evil. In the meek Christ, who took upon himself our yoke of sinfulness, bore our griefs and offenses, and suffered in our place, God has revealed the truth about his love for us.

In the Eucharist, this same Christ becomes even more gentle and humble. As St. Thomas Aquinas' hymn sings:

We adore you, O hidden God…

On the Cross, only your Godhead was hidden.

But in this figure, your humanity is hidden as well.

Revelation is obscured, first by the humanity of Jesus Christ, born of a woman, born under the law, then by the plainness of bread. But when we love the Eucharist, we love the whole mysterious One the bread has become. This love of God is love in itself, and also a building up of love so that within the Church we can love what is hidden in one another.

What is hidden in us is the fact that we are children of God and made in the image of his Son, both collectively and personally. We ourselves have obscured this reality by our own sin. God is so aware of this reality that he was willing to die in the person of his son in service of this truth. God has, so to speak, infinite trust in our own worth and in his fidelity. We are irrevocably children of God; this is our hidden reality.

God restores us to this reality by our participation in the sacramental life. In Baptism we are reborn as children of God. In Reconciliation we are continually restored to our participation in the Sonship of Jesus Christ. In the Eucharist we are formed into the image of his body and are brought forward in holiness, even into the great glorious holiness of heaven.