23rd Sunday 2023
Ezekiel 33:7-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20
“Where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them.” Are you conscious of that? Does it occur to you that when you gather with other people in the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord, that same Jesus Christ is present among you, present in a manner different from His presence in the Blessed Sacrament, but nevertheless truly present? It may be a prayer group, a group which gathers for a faith-based discussion, an RCIA meeting, or the SVP, the UCM, at Mass, or whatever. If you are meeting in the name of Jesus Christ, He is truly present among you.
Another question: are you familiar with “The General Instruction of the Roman Missal”? “Are we heck as like” I hear you cry. “Why would we be? How could we be?”
It’s actually not as difficult as you might think. There is a small version of the Missal which is a photocopy of the altar Missal, which has the General Instruction as an introduction. It is well worth reading, easy to read, and fairly short.
One of its most important sections is paragraph 27, which states the four ways in which Jesus the Christ is present in the Mass. Do you know what they are? The most obvious one is the Eucharistic species; the bread and wine which, when consecrated, are truly the Body and Blood of Christ, a reality which abides, so that Christ remains present in the tabernacle always. Within the Mass, Christ is both priest and victim, offering Himself to the Father, making present here and now the one perfect sacrifice which He offered on the Cross, enabling us to offer ourselves in union with Him.
Secondly, Christ is present in His word, proclaimed in the Scriptures. As paragraph 29 declares, “When the Scriptures are read in the Church, God Himself speaks to His people, and CHRIST, PRESENT IN HIS WORD, PROCLAIMS THE GOSPEL”. Just as the Body of Christ is broken, and His Blood poured out, so is His word broken open in the homily—or it should be. There is really no excuse for careless preaching, or for preaching which discourages people, rather than build them up.
The third, and probably most difficult to recognise, of the presences of Christ is in the priest, who acts and speaks in persona Christi “in the person of Christ”. Christ is the true priest, offering Himself; all God’s people are a priestly people, joining in offering the sacrifice of Christ and of themselves; the ordained priest puts the offering into effect through and in Christ, and on behalf of the whole priestly people.
What remains? That presence which is listed first, and which occurs first chronologically: His presence in His people. Before the priest comes to the altar, before the Scriptures are opened, before the consecration, Christ is already present, not only in the tabernacle, but also among you. “Christ is really present in the very assembly gathered in His name” says the final sentence of paragraph 27. We speak of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist as the “real presence”, not because the other three presences are somehow unreal, but because this is His presence in re , “in a thing/substance”.
Does it surprise you that Christ is first present in you? It shouldn’t, when you think about it. You are the Body of Christ, who increasingly become what you receive. Bear in mind too those words “Whatever you did to the least of mine, you did to me”. Look around you. Every face that you see is the face of Christ. Funny looking, isn’t He? But then again, so are you, and your face is His face.
I think of Veronica, a legendary figure, but one whose story teaches us. Allegedly, she wiped the face of the suffering Christ with a towel, and the impression of His face was printed on it. I suspect that the face would have been difficult to recognise, just as it is difficult to recognise in the faces around you, but it is there nonetheless. “Where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them.”
