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Two-Minute Homily by Fr Dan Ryan for the Feast of Corpus Christi 2023.
“The challenge for us today is to understand the Eucharist we receive is not a symbol, it is not a sign, it is Christ who gives himself to us so that we can be transformed into his image and likeness every day of our lives.”

• Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Author: Archdiocese of Brisbane

  When I was a very little boy, my mother had a smart way of getting me to eat my vegetables. If I ever said, I don’t want to eat my vegetables, my mother would say that she would eat half of them, and I could eat the other half. I never really saw if there was twice as much on my plate, as compared to my brother and sisters, but I did eat my half. My mother wanted me to be healthy and to eat a heathy meal.

  It was Saint Augustine who said, we become what we eat. In fact, a lot of fitness gurus and health experts will tell us these days that “we become what we eat.” We are healthy if we have a healthy diet. In the same way with the Eucharist in that we become what we eat, we are nourished in the Eucharist by Christ to become other Christs in the world.

  So we have an invitation and a challenge on this feast of the Body and the Blood of Jesus. The invitation is to ask ourselves. What does receiving Jesus in the Eucharist mean for us? Do we appreciate receiving Jesus in the Eucharist as much as we did the first time we received the Eucharist. I first received the Eucharist 66 years ago in this month of June. I was a young boy, it was a very special day, but I hope I’ve grown in my understanding of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist since 1957.

  The challenge for us today is to understand the Eucharist we receive is not a symbol, it is not a sign, it is Christ who gives himself to us so that we can be transformed into his image and likeness every day of our lives. As we receive the Eucharist, we receive the living body and blood of Jesus. The same Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem. Who walked this earth. The same Jesus who suffered and died and rose from the dead for us.

  When you think about this, it’s so incredible that is hard to imagine. Yet, we know by faith, it is true. The challenge we are given when we receive the Eucharist is “to become what we eat,” that we become other Christs in our everyday lives by what we say and do in our families, and in our world.