Full Homily

We gather this evening on this great feast of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus in the Eucharistic presence – before Jesus Christ, truly present – body, blood, soul and divinity.

• We know that by our participation in the Eucharistic celebration – by our reception of the Lord’s body and blood, that we are drawn up into the eternal triune relationship of love which St. Matthew so beautifully wrote about in our Gospel. In receiving the Eucharist we are most intimately united to the person of Christ. He nourishes us spiritually, calling us to reconciliation and effecting a true communion amongst all who eat his flesh and drink his blood.

But here we are before our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament – we celebrate no Eucharist – but we worship His presence here before us under the appearance of bread. Yes, we look beyond the mere accident of the bread to see Christ truly present here on this altar.

• How grateful we are, that our adoration of the Blessed Sacrament aids us spiritually. By his presence, Christ fulfills his promise to be with us always until the end of time. Christ will never leave us alone on our pilgrimage – on our return to the Father. As St. Thomas Aquinas notes, “It is the law of friendship that friends should live together.” Christ lives with us always in the Blessed Sacrament. And what better way for we believers to enrich our friendship with the Lord than to spend time daily with him. To be able to spend time daily with a friend is a blessing, indeed. He will never demand it of us, but should so great a lover of mankind have to ask?

• Our worship of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament also serves to purify us. As one psychologist said – she compared her prayer before the Blessed Sacrament to deep radiation therapy - The Lord opens our internal gaze to all that is good as well as to that which is disordered in our life. With such an insight the Lord can lead us to healing along our spiritual journey.

Finally, as we grow in our friendship with Jesus, and as we ourselves become purified – the school of the Eucharist teaches us how to imitate the Lord’s own self-sacrifice in our service to the community of the Church. As St. Theresa of the Child Jesus tells us in her autobiography, “I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to action, and that if this love were extinguished, the apostles would have proclaimed the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would have shed their blood no more. I saw and realized that love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time and every place.” Therefore our beloved saint exclaimed, “My call is love!  Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation.”  

• Thus, Sisters and friends, here before the Lord we can learn anew what true love is, and the cost of that love for our Saviour, and for each of us too, if we are to be faithful ministers in imitation of our Master. For it is as St. Augustine taught, it will be the Most Holy Eucharist that will help us to Be that which we See.