Mass at Corpus Christi College, Carlton

Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
on Saturday, 28th May, 2005, at 9.30am

Introduction

My dear friends,

Today, preparing for the feast of Corpus Christi, we celebrate the Mass in honour of Mary, the perfect disciple of the Lord, the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the first tabernacle and the first monstrance, who showed us the Saviour.

As we offer Mass together my prayer is that we will all learn from Mary, as the perfect disciple, to be servants of the Lord, open to his will, wondering at his presence among us.

So that we may continue our journey, let us call to mind our sins.

Homily

My dear friends,

Our late, loved Pope John Paul II pointed very clearly to the role of Mary as the perfect disciple of the Lord, the perfect contemplative and now as we prepare for the feast of Corpus Christ, I wish to speak about Mary as the woman of the Eucharist.

Pope John Paul told us ( Ecclesia De Eucharistia, no. 53 ) that the reason why he included the Mystery of the Eucharist in the Mysteries of Light in the Rosary was precisely because Mary is our teacher in contemplating Christ’s face. Indeed, the Pope says she can guide us towards this most holy sacrament of the Eucharist because she has a most profound relationship with it.

The Gospel does not mention her in the account of the institution of the Eucharist on the night of Holy Thursday. Yet we know that she was present among the apostles, who prayed with one accord in the first community, which gathered after the Ascension in the expectation of Pentecost. Certainly, Pope John Paul reminds us, Mary must have been present at the Eucharistic celebrations of the first generation of Christians who were devoted to “the breaking of bread”. ( Acts 2.42 )

If we begin with Mary’s interior disposition, however, and her union with her Son while she was carrying him, at his birth, and afterwards, we see that she is above all a woman of the Christ given for us in the Eucharist.

We know that the Eucharist is the mystery of faith that invites us to give ourselves over to God’s word, to repeat what Christ did at the Last Supper and to follow Mary’s invitation at Cana, “Do whatever he tells you.” Pope John Paul reminds us, “At the wedding feast of Cana Mary seems to say to us, ‘Do not waver; trust in the words of my Son.’ If he was able to change water into wine, he can also turn bread and wine into his body and blood, and through this mystery bestow on believers the living memorial of his Passover, thus becoming the Bread of Life.”

Her own words, “Behold the servant of the Lord. Let his will for me be done”, are a reminder that Mary was one with Jesus in her whole life, who conceived through the Holy Spirit the one who was the Son of God and who invites us to believe in continuity with her faith, that the same Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, becomes present in his full humanity and divinity under the signs of bread and wine. Moreover, the words of Saint Luke, “Blessed is she who believed that the promise made to her by the Lord would be fulfilled”, ( Luke 1:45 ) show that Mary in her own life had already anticipated the eucharistic faith of the Church.

At her Visitation to Elizabeth she bore in her womb the Word made flesh and became in some way the first tabernacle in history, in which the Son of God allowed himself to be adored by Elizabeth and his light was shown to her through the eyes of the voice of Mary. In the Advent Preface we pray, “The Virgin Mother bore him in her womb with love beyond all telling”, and the enraptured and unparalleled love that she showed at his birth is a reminder of the adoration and communion with him that she shows for us every time we receive Holy Communion.

As she followed Jesus in his life, Mary gave him, knowing that he would be a sign of contradiction and that a sword would pierce her own heart. ( Luke 2:34-35 ) Her journey to the foot of Calvary was an anticipation of the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist and we can say she showed a “spiritual communion of desire and giving that would find its high peak in her union with Jesus in his passion and then find expression after Easter in the sharing in the Eucharist which the apostles celebrated as the memorial of that passion.”

Today, as we prepare for Corpus Christi, we remember that in the Eucharist the Church is completely united to Christ and his sacrifice and makes her own the spirit of Mary. When Mary exclaims, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour”, she was already bearing Jesus in her womb. She praises God with and in Jesus, showing the true eucharistic attitude.

Her total example of oneness with Jesus in prayer and contemplation, in her work as a mother, in her care for the Church, is a constant reminder to all of us that she as the perfect disciple remains interceding for us and challenges us to be always like her, in readiness for the Lord’s service, humble because the Almighty has done great things for us too, eucharistic in praising and thanking God through Jesus and knowing that it is the living presence of Christ that is our strength for our journey.

May Mary, the Mother of the Church, the Mother of priests, seminarians and bishops, guide us so that even now we will become more worthy disciples.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.