Sometimes when I think of some of the different things that people of
different faiths believe, and how strange they seem to me it also
makes me think of the Eucharist. For those who do not believe
as we do, it must seem like the craziest notion of all; that God
makes himself present through the hands of a priest, in a tiny piece
of bread and some wine. What could be more bizarre than that?
And we don’t just believe that it is a reminder of Jesus or similar
to Jesus, but really and truly the body and blood of Christ. I
also think that it is a teaching so extreme that only God could come
up with it and get away with it, so to speak. What human being
would try to convince others that Jesus was present in a piece of
bread when a priest says certain prayers over it?
In his first letter to the Christians in Corinth (1 Cor
11:23-26)—which is the oldest account of the mass that we have—St.
Paul says straight out, “This is what I received from the Lord and
in turn passed on to you…” He doesn’t say that he
received it from the other Apostles, but from the Lord himself.
Jesus, as you probably remember, appeared to St. Paul while he was
persecuting Christians and turned his life around. He appeared
to him several other times as well. And Paul was so affected by
what happened to him that he dedicated the rest of his life to
preaching about this man Jesus. But the line that always
strikes me is where he says, “This is what I received from the
Lord…” He is saying, “I didn’t make this up and neither
did any other person. Jesus himself taught us this and taught
us to do this in his memory.” And so every time an ordained
priest says the words of consecration at mass, “This is my Body…
This is the chalice of my Blood…” Jesus becomes present in the
form of bread and wine.
How are we supposed to understand this?
We aren’t! I do not understand it at all, but I believe
it. That is why we try to fast for an hour before receiving
Holy Communion and why we don’t eat or smoke in the church, to
remind us that this is something unlike anything else in the world.
It is also a beautiful sign of how close God is to us that He would
continually come to us in the middle of our lives, each week, each
day, to help and encourage us. He comes to us as we are, not as
we should be, but as we are. It is also God himself who makes
it possible to receive him, because we could never be ready or worthy
enough to even come close to the divine presence, not to mention
receive him. That is why we always say the prayer: “Lord I am
not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word
and my soul shall be healed” (just as the Roman soldier said when
Jesus offered to come to his house to heal his servant).
There are two extremes that I come across with regard to the
Eucharist. One is where someone will say to me, “Oh father I
don’t receive the Eucharist because I really am not worthy
enough.” Correct! No one is worthy enough nor ever
could be, but since the Lord himself is happy to give himself to us
this way, we should not be afraid to receive him. The other
extreme is where people feel they have a ‘right’ to receive the
Eucharist without any kind of repentance or need to confess every
once in a while. Wrong again. There is no question of
this being a ‘right’ on our part. The Eucharist is pure
gift from God and for our part we must try to approach it as well as
we can, especially by confessing our sins every so often. But
the most important thing to remember is that the Lord wants to give
himself to us, and so we should not be afraid to come to him.
Remember that ultimately it is God himself who makes it possible for
us to receive him. “Lord I am not worthy to receive you but
only say the word and I shall be healed.”
I want to finish with this story:
In the late 1500s there lived a woman named Margaret Clithero in the
town of York in England. She was a convert to Catholicism at a
time when it was against the law to be a Catholic. Priests used
to come to her disguised as cloth penders, bringing her the Eucharist
and she would hide them. She never saw mass in a public church
or heard a Catholic hymn being sung even though she lived next to
York Minster Cathedral. It was an Anglican church at the time.
She was eventually found out and she was dragged from the butcher
shop where she worked and brought before magistrates and ordered to
plead guilty or not guilty, so that she could go on trial. She
refused as she didn’t want her innocent blood to be on the head of
twelve jurors. She said, “If you want to condemn me, condemn
me yourself.” The judge said, “Because you are a woman I
will let you go free, but you must promise never to hide these
priests again.” He then handed her the bible and told her to
swear on it. So she took the bible in open court and held it up
in the air and said, “I swear by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if you
let me go free, I will hide priests again, because they are the only
ones who can bring us the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So just over 400 years ago, she was brought to St. Michael’s bridge
in York and given the punishment, worse than being hung, drawn and
quartered. It was called in English law, ‘the punishment most
severe’. She was pressed to death under heavy weights.
It was to take three days and she was to receive only a little muddy
water to drink to keep her alive. The executioner was bribed
and he put a stone under her head so that she died within an hour as
her neck was broken. She was the mother of eight children, and
some of them were there when she was executed.
In the little chapel that is there to her memory in York today, there
is an inscription over the door, which is a message for our times.
It says ‘She died for the mass.’
So the next time that you find yourself bored with the mass, or just
not too bothered to go because you’re tired, think of her and think
of the many priests and men and women who have been executed for
carrying the Eucharist or for saying mass. God has given us an extraordinary treasure in the Eucharist may He
give us new eyes to see what is here before us.
“I swear by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, if you
let me go free, I will hide priests again, because they are the only
ones who can bring us the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
– St. Margaret Clithero.
Wonderful post, Father. Other sources report that she only had three children and was pregnant with her fourth; but perhaps they may be incorrect or outdated. In any case, you wrote a very stirring homily, and my newfound devotion to this great saint only increases.
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