How bizarre. On this day of all days, the day when we remember that Jesus gathered his disciples and for the first time broke the bread and shared the cup of his Body and Blood, on this day we cannot share as a community in receiving the Holy Eucharist. It feels unjust. Our situation reminded me of something I read several years ago. Pierre Teilhard De Chardin was a Jesuit priest who was a well-known paleontologist in the beginning of the twentieth century. While working for the Natural History Museum of Paris he was on a dig in Mongolia. Isolated as he was in the Gobi Desert he ran out of the elements to celebrate Mass. That inspired in him a prayer that he called the Mass on the World. It reads in part:
Since once again, Lord, I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar … I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it I will offer you all the labors and sufferings of the world … I call before me the whole vast anonymous army of living humanity, those who surround me and support me though I do not know them … I know we cannot forestall, still less dictate to you, even the smallest of your actions; from you alone comes all initiative – and this applies in the first place to my prayer … Do you now, therefore, speaking through my lips, pronounce over this earthly travail your twofold efficacious word … Over every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day, say again the words: This is my Body. And over every death-force which waits in readiness to corrode, to wither, to cut down, speak again the commanding words which express the supreme mystery of faith: This is my blood.
We have to do our own Mass on the World since we have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar to receive Holy Communion. Our Mass on the World will involve, as Teilhard’s did, an expansion of our understanding of the body of Christ. For Peter, James, John, Mary Magdalene and all the others who walked the dusty roads of Galilee with Jesus the body of Christ was obvious. It was the physical humanity of the man who was born in Bethlehem, grew up on Nazareth, and now showed them a new way of relating to God. The specific body with its skin and bones and vessels and organs which was knit in Mary’s womb was what they understood as the body of Christ. However, on the night before he died Jesus gathered those same disciples together and gave them an incomparable gift – the ability to continue to remain intimate with Jesus even after his death. As the small group gathered for their Passover meal, Jesus took bread and wine and said, “This is my body. This is my blood. Do this in remembrance of me.” The body of Christ now came to include the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. But that was not the whole story at that Last Supper. As St. John tells it Jesus not only picked up bread and wine he also picked up a pitcher and a towel in order to witness loving service by washing the feet of his companions. “I have given you example,” Jesus said,” that as I have done for you, you should also do.” No doubt this raised the echo in the mind of his followers “Whatsoever you do to the least, that you do unto me.” The body of Christ was now to be found embodied in those who are hurting to whom we extend loving service. St. Paul expanded that image when he calls the whole church, all of us, the Body of Christ. We need look no farther than the person sitting next to us to find the Christ present in our midst.
Our understanding of the body of Christ has expanded outward: from the individual person of Jesus, to include his presence in the Eucharist, to include those whom we serve, to include all those around us as Church. But on this Holy Thursday, on this time of pandemic, Teilhard challenges us to expand our notion of the body of Christ even further – to include all of creation. The Bible tells us that all was created through him, all was created for him so we should not be surprised to find the body of Christ present in every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day. We should not be shocked that the blood of Christ continues to be shed in the death-force which waits to corrode, to wither, to cut down. The earth is not simply our common home, as Pope Francis reminds us, it is also the place where we come to recognize that Christ is with us in all things and through all things as we move from one piece of holy ground to another.
Let us take this Holy Thursday then, as the occasion to expand our vision. Being denied a reception of the Body of Christ in Holy communion, let us receive the body of Christ present in the song of the bird, the bloom of the tulip, the fall of the rain. Let us embrace all creation as the kiss of God inviting us to life, life to the full.
