Meatball Sandwiches and Growing Up

Good morning, everyone. Today is the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, Corpus Christi.

To get to this point in the life of Christ, a lot of things had to happen first. When I was reflecting on today’s readings, my mind went back to my youth.

I grew up first-generation American, Italian by descent. Things were different in our house, and we knew it. My lunch bag alone made that clear. Everybody else had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I had meatball sandwiches soaked in sauce and olive oil that would seep right through the paper bag, filling my locker with that smell for three or four hours before lunch. (None of us ever got sick, though)

I also remember sitting at the table for steak dinners, carefully cutting around every nerve and every piece of fat, eating only the clean meat. I’d look over at my mother, and she was pulling everything off the bone. The fat, the cartilage, the marrow. All of it. She would look at my plate and say, “Look how wasteful you are.”

The day I finally grew up came after a soccer game. I was starving, and the only thing left in the house was rapini. If you don’t know rapini, it’s an Italian variety of broccoli, a little bitter. I didn’t want it. But my siblings had already devoured everything else. So I sat down and ate the whole thing. That was the day I grew up. Rapini was never a problem again.

The Seminary and the Vow of Poverty

There was more growing up to do when I entered the seminary. A missionary seminary takes the vow of poverty seriously, and I mean seriously.

Every week, we lined up at the pantry for supplies. When it came to toilet paper, they did not hand out rolls. They counted out sheets. I learned to conserve in ways I never imagined. We received five Q-tips per week. I learned to shave without shaving cream, using soap and toothpaste instead. When the toothpaste tube looked empty, I would press it down with my comb to get every last drop until Sunday came around and the pantry opened again.

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Remember the Hunger, Remember How You Were Fed

Why tell you all of this? Because in today’s first reading, Moses says to the people, “Remember. Remember how for forty years the Lord your God directed your journey from the desert to the promised land. Remember the affliction. Remember the tests. Remember the hunger. Remember how you were fed.”

And in today’s Gospel, the Lord tells us, “I am the bread that came down from heaven. Not the bread that your ancestors ate, but the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

For Christ to reach that moment, the moment of giving His body and blood, think about everything He had to endure. The people of Israel and the body of Christ are the same. They had to endure torment, betrayal, suffering, and hunger. They endured mockery, death, resurrection, and ascension before finally arriving at the gift of life freely given.

The Feast of Those Who Do Not Give Up

The lesson in all of this is one word. Perseverance.

Corpus Christi is the feast day of those who do not give up. It is a celebration for everyone who has gone through tough times, who has endured real hardship, who has suffered, who has faced agonizing moments, illness, and death. The message of today is simply this: don’t quit. Don’t give up. Keep fighting the good fight. Be the person God created you to be.

Rise. Ascend. And keep giving yourself.

I heard a story recently that stuck with me. In the 1930s and 1940s, a diagnosis of leukemia was a death sentence. The survival rate was zero. Today, the survival rate for leukemia is ninety percent. That happened because of people who would never give up. Researchers and doctors and patients refused to stop looking for a solution. They kept going.

So when you are in the middle of a hard season, you can cry. You can cry a lot. Go for a walk and cry if you need to. But don’t quit. Don’t ever give up.

Fight the good fight, rise, ascend, and then give back freely what you have received.

Freedom, Not Escape

One more thing worth mentioning. This morning I saw the Pope speaking on a plane heading to Spain. A reporter asked him whether he expected to draw a larger crowd at his gatherings than Bad Bunny, who was also performing in Spain. The Pope said, very graciously and with a touch of humor, that he did not think he would.

It made me think about why we love concerts and entertainment so much. We love them because they give us a chance to escape from the realities of this world, even just for a few hours.

Corpus Christi offers something different. It does not offer escape. It offers a pathway through.

The journey we take in our lives moves from captivity to liberation, from being consumed by hardship to being free enough to give again. That is the journey Israel took. That is the journey Christ walked. And it is the journey each of us is on right now.

Corpus Christi is the celebration of that freedom. It is the celebration of a character that has been molded and tested through fire. It is the celebration of being able to give back all that we have received.

That is the lesson today.

Amen.