Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading comes from Exodus. Moses, having received the commandments from God, reads them to the people who pledge to follow them. Moses recited the 10 Commandments four chapters earlier. After the 10 Commandments Moses reads commandments on worship, justice, property, and many other areas. After those gathered promise to follow all these commandments Moses built and altar and ordered the sacrifice of oxen. Taking the blood from the oxen he sprinkled it on the people as a way to seal the covenant. Mark’s Gospel recounts the story of the Last Supper where Jesus celebrates the Passover meal with his disciples. He breaks the unleaven bread and offers it to them as his body. At the end of the meal he raises the cup of wine and offers it to them as his blood. He concludes by telling them that he will not drink of the fruit of the vine until he does it in the Kingdom.

Catholics of a certain age generally have vivid memories of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ, in Latin). For those who are not Catholic it’s hard to imagine how important this is.

Even today only a priest and those above him can transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, and until 1977 in the United States, they were the only ones who could even touch it. When we were given Communion we were only allowed to have the priest place it on our tongues. As an aside, when I was an altar boy a friend of mine was serving another mass. The priest tripped on his way down the steps and spilled perhaps 50 of the hosts. My friend felt terrible but there was nothing he could do except stand there as the 60 year old priest was on his hands picking the Communion wafers up off the floor.

From the earliest days of the church the community gathered when one of the Twelve (and their successors) consecrated the bread and wine. Early on they realized that some of their number were sometimes absent due to illness. Not wanting them to feel abandoned, the community would reserve some hosts to bring to the sick during the week by the deacon. Soon they found that the place where they were reserved became a place that members wanted to come and pray. Soon there developed what are now called “Blessed Sacrament Chapels” where people could come and pray.

This was the good news. This was the time when celebration of the Eucharist (The Body and Blood of Christ) was integrated so much into the life of the church it was hard to imagine how it could be any other way.

But there was bad news also: sometime during the Middle Ages people began to decline to take the Eucharist, feeling unworthy. Somehow the belief in the power of the Eucharist translated into an erroneous belief that it was reserved only for those of particular holiness. And it actually led to something called “occular Communion” where believers felt they could gaze upon the host but not consume it. And this in the face of one of the prayers at Catholic mass: “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

During the reforms of the Protestant Reformation, these new Christian churches took a new look at these practices. As a Catholic I’m treading lightly in the hopes of not stumbling into offense. But as an observer it appears Protestant churches celebrate Eucharist in many different ways. Some never do, others do it monthly, and others do it weekly but without the idea that Eucharist is eternal (ie, after the worship service is over, it can be treated just like any other piece of bread).

But for us Catholics, this medieval teaching became, if anything, more entrenched. And then, perhaps, it took the turn that I find most troubling. By the 20th Century Eucharist was almost seen as a “reward for good behavior.” In other words you couldn’t receive if you were known to be guilty of certain offenses. It was said to cause scandal.

OK, what’s scandal? The accepted definition of scandal is this: By your actions you are causing others to question their faith or a teaching of the church. In other words, if you are living a life blatantly contrary to church teaching, but are still receiving the Eucharist publicly, you may lead others into thinking that your behavior is acceptable.

And that sounds fine on the face of it, but I’m certain I’m not the only one who noticed that some behaviors were called out for special attention. If you were a slumlord who collected money from poor people who lived in your squalor, that really wasn’t seen as scandal. If you ran a business that took advantage of your employees or the environment so that you could become wealthier, you were in good standing. But if you lived with someone outside of marriage, if you were divorced and remarried, if you practiced birth control, or if you advocated a nuanced view of abortion, you caused scandal and were barred from receiving Eucharist.

This has become a particularly volatile issue in the last 30 or so years when Catholic politicians came under fire for receiving Eucharist when some in the community felt they shouldn’t have. Some pointed to their devotion to easing the plight of the poor while others pointed to their views on sexual issues.

And I guess that’s what’s always troubled me on what I call the “politicization of the Eucharist.” If the sin was greed you were OK, but if it was lust you were in trouble.

Let’s face it: We are all in need of healing, and because of that we are in need of the Eucharist. And perhaps those in the most sin are the ones in the most need. I find it compelling that during the celebration of mass the priest says these words as he blesses the chalice filled with wine:

Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.

In other words, it is the Eucharist itself that forgives sins, not just the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation (formerly known as confession). There’s a lot I have to say about that, but let’s leave it for another time.

I’m not unmindful of the reality of scandal but sometimes I think it gets used too easily by those who are attempting to use someone’s faith as a way of manipulating their behavior or by punishing them for difficult (and sometimes gut wrenching) decisions in their lives.

It’s almost as if we make Eucharist more valuable if we make it harder to receive. It sounds funny to say this but it’s as if we were using the laws of economics: if something becomes more scarce, it becomes more valuable. And I hardly have to say this isn’t true. What gives Eucharist its value isn’t how much of it we have, but how much Jesus sacrificed to bring it to us.

Every priest will tell you of a time when someone stood before him and he had to make a split second decision. For me it came at my ordination mass. My ordination was wonderful on so many levels, but for me it was particularly moving because important people in my life who had never seen the inside of a Catholic church chose to celebrate that day with me. As I was giving out Eucharist, my sister’s mother in law came before me and presented her hands. She is a wonderful woman, but she is absolutely not Catholic. I had a split second to decide what to do, and I decided to give her Eucharist. In that split second I decided a few things. I decided that in front of hundreds of people (and dozens of video cameras) I didn’t want to embarrass her; knowing this may have been her first experience of a Catholic church, and likely the last, I didn’t want her to experience exclusion. I decided that I couldn’t read her heart but I was pretty sure she wasn’t there for some hidden agenda. I decided that if I wanted to avoid scandal, publicly refusing to give someone Eucharist would likely cause more scandal, not less. And finally I decided that God could take care of Himself and was not diminished because someone who isn’t Catholic was receiving it.

Please understand I’m not saying it’s proper for everyone to receive, but I also believe that if someday I have to defend myself in front of God for what I did, I’d rather have to defend being too generous rather than being too stingy.

When I think of Eucharist, when I think of Corpus Christi, I think of it as part of all of our lives as disciples of Jesus. I like to think that when Jesus said: “Do this in memory of me” he meant it. And so when I celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi I like to think Jesus wants us to be as generous as he was.