Eucharist and Everybody

Seeing God in our neighbor and the Eucharist

06/22/2025

Luke 9:11b-17 Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God, and he healed those who needed to be cured. As the day was drawing to a close, the Twelve approached him and said, "Dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms and find lodging and provisions; for we are in a deserted place here." He said to them, "Give them some food yourselves." They replied, "Five loaves and two fish are all we have, unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people." Now the men there numbered about five thousand. Then he said to his disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about fifty." They did so and made them all sit down. Then taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied. And when the leftover fragments were picked up, they filled twelve wicker baskets.

Today’s feast of Corpus Christi is one of my favorite feasts of the whole year. Why? Well, because it’s all about the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus, which the Catechism calls nothing short of “the source and summit of the Christian life.” It’s like those old commercials used to say, “It doesn’t get any better than this!”

And yet, today is also touched with some sadness because according to the 2019 Pew Research poll, only about 30% of Roman Catholics believe that Jesus is truly present in the Bread and Wine of the Mass. Conversely, we might say: roughly 70% of ya’ll think the Eucharist is a merely a symbol. By the way, believing the Eucharist is a symbol is called “Protestantism.”

So, in order to reinvigorate our Catholic faith in the Real Presence, Virginia Ricketts and her crew have individually baked, iced, and decorated, 2,200 Corpus Christi cookies, which we will hand out to everyone who comes to Mass this weekend. If a Corpus Christi cookie doesn’t restore your faith in the Eucharist, I don’t know what will! What more do you people need?

In the gospel today, Jesus also offers us some food to deepen our faith in the Eucharist. In Luke 9 Jesus multiplies 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed over five thousand hungry people. Now, what does that have to do with Eucharistic faith? Well, the feeding in Luke 9 directly parallels the feeding in Luke 22 at the Last Supper, because Luke describes both feedings with the same four highly charged words: “he took, he blessed, he broke, and he gave.”

That is, there exists a mutually reinforcing faith between believing in the Jesus who feeds us at Mass with Bread and Wine, and believing in the Jesus who feeds the masses with bread and fish. One of the best ways, therefore, to deepen our faith and love for the Eucharist is to strengthen our faith and love for everybody. And that is why Virginia is feeding us with cookies today, like Jesus fed the people in the gospel.

St. Mother Teresa required her sisters to spend 3 hours a day in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, staring at Jesus as Eucharistic Bread. Then they spent the rest of the day taking care of the poor dying in the streets of Why? She explained: “If you cannot see Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, you will not see him in the Most Blessed Sacrament.” That is, we cannot love the Body of Christ on the altar, while we ignore the Body of Christ in the alleyways.

J.R.R. Tolkien gave similar advice to his sons, saying: “Boys, make your Communion in circumstances that affront your taste: choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or proud or vulgar friar” – by the way, that’s why people love coming to I.C. Church, to see those gabbling priests! – “and a church full of…ill-behaved children – from those who yell to those products of Catholic school who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn.”

He continued: “It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand – after which our Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.” In other words, faith in Jesus in the Eucharist and faith in everybody rise and fall together. Put differently, blindness to Jesus in your blessed neighbor, causes blindness to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Here are a couple of things I do to increase my faith in the human species, so that I can better see Jesus in the Eucharistic species. Many Hispanics have a habit of kissing the priest’s hand when they greet him. By now I have learned who this devout Hispanics are. So before they can do that to me, I kiss their hand first. They really hate it when I do that.

The Filipinos have a different custom of taking the priest’s hand when they greet him and touch it to their forehead as a sign of reverence. So, again, I do that same gesture to them in return. Now, do I do that just to bug and irritate them? Well, maybe a little bit. But it is also because if I cannot see Jesus in his humble presence in the mob, I will never see Jesus in his holy presence in the Mass.

My friends, we priests as well as ya’ll people of God can have 30% Catholic faith or 70% Protestant faith in the Eucharist. Why? Well, faith in the Mass and faith in mankind rise and fall together because Jesus is really present in both. And that is why feeding people with Corpus Christi cookies is exactly what the divine Doctor ordered for a lack of faith in the Eucharist.

Praised be Jesus Christ!