My dear Friends:

I will be waiting here.... 

or your silence to break,

For your soul to shake,

For your love to wake!

…A voice inside the beat says,

"I know you're tired, but come.

….This is the way.”

Rumi

Today we are celebrating the beautiful feast of Corpus Christi/Body of Christ. This awe-filled feast has been preceded by the celebration of Pentecost and the Holy Trinity. Over the weeks, we have reflected on the unfolding, transforming experiences of the Holy Spirit and our fusion with God’s love in the Holy Trinity. Today, we celebrate Corpus Christi/Body of Christ.

The feast of Corpus Christi, expressed graphically in the gospel, is God’s fusion into oneness with us in the Eucharist. Each one of us is held in God’s loving embrace until we are fused into one breath, one heartbeat one soul, one body. In this Fusion into oneness with that passionate love of God, we are the connectivity, and relationality, of the Body of Christ!

In this pandemic, look at the multitudes of First Responders/First Liners who connected with the pain, fear, hurt and isolation of that suffering body, and touch it with healing, compassion, selfsacrifice, courage, and hope. Think of the countless people who knock on doors, deliver mail, telephone, sent messages, and the myriad other acts of selfless love, kindness and generosity which are lived out to express our connectedness and relatedness to those of living in isolation.

How can we express our inner yearning for that fusion with Christ in the Eucharist? Think of the person whom you really love. The person in whose arms you want to be held. The person you really want to hold and hug!...And instead of being able to throw your arms around that person (and I do not mean that polite, quick, clinical embrace with a pat on the back), one often has to give a polite smile and keep social distance! It is not quite the same, is it! I think many of us experience the same with our ‘spiritual communion’ instead of the physical and spiritual union we receive in our (holy) communion with the Divine!

Thank God, our churches are now open! It will be wonderful to see you all again after sooooo long! As we enter into this Year of the Eucharist, perhaps this is the time to reconnect physically with our Faith Community. Our parish COVID SAFETY TEAM (all of whom are medical professionals), will continue to ensure that the guidelines are followed and that we are kept safe.

As I said at the beginning…God is waiting. That embrace is there! He holds us in that embrace in which, indeed, we become one breath, one heartbeat, one soul and one body…This, we experience in God’s ‘Eucharistic Embrace’. His love flows into our responses to an often, suffering body of humankind. It is then, whatever pain or suffering, challenges or hardships we meet, we will realise, like Rumi, that the rose’s rarest essence rests in the thorns!

Remember me as loving you, 

Fr. Antony