The Holy Eucharist and the Evil of Sorrow -The Feast of Corpus Christi(2025-06-22)             

1. “Behold I am with you until the end of the world”. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Today we celebrate the external solemnity of the great feast of Corpus Christi. Since we were unable to render Our Lord, Who is truly, really and substantially present in the Holy Eucharist, the honor and homage due to Him last Thursday, we do it today.

     

2. St. Thomas Aquinas says that the Holy Eucharist is such an immense benefit granted by God to the Catholic Church, to Christian civilization, and gives all baptized Catholics such great dignity. He adds that there is no nation nor religion in this world where the gods are so intimately close to the people themselves.

          

3. Only in the Catholic religion, the one true religion, can we really see the One True God so close to us, mere mortals, that He deigned to assume our human nature, and this so that one day we may participate in His divine beatitude. God the Son assumed a true human nature. His Body was offered —and continues to be offered at each Mass— as a victim to reconcile us to God the Father. The effusion of His Blood while nailed to the Cross —effusion which happens in each Mass as well— is the price of our salvation and washes us of our sins.

         

4. Our Lord’s words “Behold I am with you until the end of the world” simply becomes an understatement. To see Our Lord crucified daily, again and again, for our sake, in spite of our many imperfections, would be utter foolishness. But the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass manifest the divine wisdom, goodness, justice and mercy of so good a God that an eternity in heaven will not be enough for us to sing His praises and thank Him for such greatness towards us, poor sinners.

          

5. That’s why we Catholics are so fortunate. In spite of being sinners, ridden with infirmities, exiles in this valley of tears, because of the Holy Eucharist we have that power to turn our tears and our sorrows to our own benefit.

          

6. St. Thomas Aquinas says that “Sorrow is the heritage of all mortals”. And the Catholic Church teaches us why: because of sin. In fact the first 5000 years of humanity’s history was a non-stop succession of civilization after civilization, kingdoms after kingdoms, new beginnings and sorrowful endings, oftentimes catastrophic endings. Only one empire was the exception: that empire which on it’s downward spiral was converted to the Catholic religion. That empire was transformed, expanded, reached such intellectual, moral and cultural heights and progress that was never seen before in the history of mankind.

         

7. Nowadays the world that surrounds us is terribly sad, ridden with sorrow. Some might say “But Father, today is the height of human happiness. Humanity has never been happy until now”. But at what cost? That is precisely the point. If there are worldwide industries just to make men happy, or at least momentarily make them happy, then that only points out that men are sad.

        

8. How is alcohol used and abused for the sake of happiness? And what to say of drugs? The growing misuse of God’s creatures such as alcohol and money points to a problem not in God’s creatures but in the hearts of men. Entertainment, and all sorts of modern diversions that have become gigantic industries, indicate the greatness of the sorrow that oppress men.

          

9. If some people have to lose their dignities —sometimes even their lives— all for the sake of entertainment, it only shows that today’s men have an ever growing craving for happiness, misunderstood happiness because today’s men confuse happiness with pleasure. This ever-growing appetite for pleasure indicates the ever-growing vacuum in men’s hearts.

          

10. And if this seems exaggerated, let us be reminded that the catalogue of the things that we love is the same catalogue of the things that we fear. The catalogue of our joys, therefore, is the same catalogue of our sorrows.

         

11. I have nothing against actors and artists. Literature and drama are part of human existence. But if the unreal world of entertainment becomes the real reason for existence for some men, to the point that the greater the unreality, the greater the entertainment, immorality is excused for the sake of entertainment, then there is a real problem not in the artists but in the hearts of men.

      

12. We are all subject to sorrow, to sadness. What makes things more sad is that Catholics today no longer know how to face the problem of evil, nor the reality of daily tribulations. This inability to face these unpleasant realities can cause weariness of soul which leads to sorrow.

         

13. We have to combat sorrow. St Thomas Aquinas says that “If we let sorrow conquer our hearts it would be something vicious, because sorrow can hamper the use of our reason”. And that is why some people take their own lives.

   

14. It is a natural reaction of the human heart, if it is oppressed by sorrow, to seek relief and consolation. Many times we commit the blunder of seeking consolation where we cannot truly find it. Among creatures: mainly in carnal pleasures. Sometimes among worldly pleasures: fame or good fortune or both. Certainly some of them can give us a temporary relief from sadness. But never true consolation. Why?

          

15. Because more than we know it, we usually go by the standards of the world. For the world, to console is to make someone feel good at all cost. However, for God and His Church to console is to sustain someone in his tribulations so that he may persevere in that which is morally good, in spite of its being arduous.

          

16. If, in order to console someone, we accept a sinful solution, or we support his morally wrong decisions, then we are not consoling but increasing his sorrow. If we support someone in what is truly good in the eyes of God, it may be unpleasant at first, maybe even unacceptable, but if that someone perseveres in what is right, then we have truly consoled him.

          

17. Now, the only Person whose existence is His own felicity is God. That is why God is source of all consolation. In this valley of tears, the more we are truly united with God, the more we receive consolation from Him. Now, the Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament by which we unite ourselves with God in every sense. That’s why in the Catholic religion we are not exempt from sorrow. But, thanks be to God thru the Holy Eucharist, we have power over sorrow.

          

18. There are 2 aspects of the Eucharist are, particularly, very consoling. Firstly, the Holy Eucharist as a Sacrifice. Our Lord is now glorious in heaven. But when He descends from heaven to the altar, He appears to us a victim. He takes the appearance of bread and wine. By doing so, he sacramentally separates His Body and Blood, just like in His Passion, when He shed His Blood to the last drop while His Body was hanging on the Cross.

 

19. The Eucharist, therefore, reminds us of the sorrows of Our Lord and thus encourages us to embrace with love the daily humiliations and sorrows in this valley of tears. The Eucharist makes us see these daily sorrows as a means, with the help of grace, to conform ourselves with the Will and example of Our Lord and thus grow in holiness.

          

20. These daily crosses, when embraced for the love of God, these crosses are medicine which cure us of our selfishness and pride. These crosses have a redemptive power as long as they are accepted by a soul that lives in God’s grace which, in turn, is received thru the Eucharist. Also, our daily sorrows are almost nothing in God’s eyes. But when these daily sorrows are united with the Sacrifice of Our Lord, then they become of great value, just like that drop of water when mixed with wine at the Offertory. It’s not water anymore but wine that will be transubstantiated into the Blood of Our Lord.

          

21. Secondly, the Holy Eucharist perpetuates the presence of Our Lord among us. In the Eucharist, our “friend” is truly present with us. Friend, in the scholastic or classical sense, is the person who loves us and whom we truly love, with whom we communicate superior or higher goods.

   

22. In the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord is truly our frie3nd. “No one has greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends”. He sacrifices his human life so we can partake of His divine life. He communicates with us His grace in this life, which is a participation of His divine nature. If we reciprocate His communication by cultivating grace, by growing in holiness, then after this life He will communicate with us —share would be a better word— His eternal happiness.

         

23. According to St Thomas, a friend, along with the contemplation of truth, is true consolation. Because when you are sad you seem to be carrying a burden, and if you have a true friend with whom you can communicate your sadness it eases the burden. That is why it is cruel to remove the tabernacle from it’s place of honor to a side chapel, away from the gaze of God’s children who all carry crosses. That’s why all false “christian” religions deny the reality of the Holy Eucharist, precisely because these false “christian” religions do not come from Christ.

          

24. The usual temptation of those who work for the salvation of their souls is discouragement. It’s source is sadness and it can darken the light of our faith. But Our Lord knows perfectly well what sorrow is. He endured the greatest of all sorrows when He redeemed us. Who then can be discouraged in approaching Him in the tabernacle? Who can say that Holy Communion is not that beneficial for him?

          

25. The reality each time we receive Holy Communion is that God the Father in heaven can say, seeing us united in such an intimate way with God the Son, can say without falsehood “This is my beloved son, or daughter, in whom I am well pleased”. Such consolation can only be found in the one true religion of the one true God.

         

26. Our Lord knows that it is is us who are to be redeemed, not Him. If we are to be redeemed then we have to have our own garden of Gethsemani, our own way of the Cross. Our Lord knows that and He also knows we are weak and inconstant. That is why He stays with us as our consoling Angel.

          

27. Seeing all these in the Holy Eucharist, one does not need to be a genius which religion truly corresponds to the reality of God’s wisdom and goodness and to the reality of human misery and necessity.

         

28. Above all our tabernacles we can put this inscription: “For our consolation”. He is truly present in the Eucharist so that Mass after Mass He is a Victim who personally offers Himself as a sacrifice for our sins, then He nourishes our souls thru Holy Communion. He is truly present in the Eucharist so that we can always come here, under His gaze, to offer our joys and sorrows, so we can truly unite our our hearts to Him whose Sacred Heart made Him stay in the tabernacle.

          

29. That’s why the true Christian religion is interior and rational, realistic in how it deals with human miseries. The false “christian” religions are all merely superficial and sentimental. Modernist Catholicism is, sadly, superficial and sentimental as well.

         

30. But there is also the danger of becoming accustomed, in a bad way, to His beneficial presence among us. This happens from time to time in His own Catholic Church. That’s why God, when we study history, permits crises from time to time. When there are so many mediocre Catholics, a tribulation in the Church obligates them to choose: whether to be bad Catholics like others, or to become good Catholics and thus to be part of the multitude of saints in heaven. I suppose I don’t have to say which kind of Catholics we should encourage ourselves to be.

          

31. Another common characteristic of all false “christian” and nonchristian religions alike is that they don’t have a mother, with the privilege of Divine Maternity, to whom we must profess filial love. If those false “christian” religions deny the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, why would they honor His Immaculate Mother who provided Him His precious Body and Blood?

        

32. It is only natural, therefore, that our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament grow with our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and of our Redeemer. And vice versa.

      

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

     

fr. Fidel Ferrer