Like the Dewfall
Homily for Sunday, June 22, 2025; Corpus Christi, Year C
I’m a visual person.
My background is in film and television, a bit of theater, with a side of cartooning. So when I read something I’ll envision the scene playing itself out in my imagination. And today’s Gospel reading is a bit of a challenge to visualize.
The various movie versions of the Life of Christ seem never to know quite what to do with the scene. In the movie The Gospel According to St. Matthew by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jesus just makes baskets full of bread appear out of nowhere. Another film, I forget which one, has bread falling out of the sky, literally raining down from Heaven.
But that’s not how it happens in the Gospel.
The Gospel reading is much more subtle. Jesus breaks the bread. The disciples distribute it. Everyone eats and is satisfied, and the leftovers fill twelve baskets.
I’m reminded of something a few years ago, when there were reports of a similar possible miracle at a parish in Connecticut. It’s reported that they were low on consecrated hosts, but after everyone received Communion they were left with more than they started with.
I’ve been in similar situations – not the miraculous multiplication of bread part, but situations of not being sure we’d have enough hosts for everyone present. I can only imagine what would go through the mind of a minister – or of a disciple. At what point do they start to think, hmm, more here than I thought? At what point do they think, hmm, something weird here? At what point do they realize, wow, this is an actual miracle?
Our celebration of the Eucharist is a little bit like that – a miracle unfolding in front of our eyes in a subtle and hidden way. At what point does bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ?
Does it happen at the Epiclesis, as the priest calls the Holy Spirit down upon the gifts? That’s what the instructor in my Sacramental Theology class believed; once invoked, why would the Spirit wait around for something more to happen? But that’s the very beginning of the Eucharistic prayer. So maybe it happens at the elevation when the words of institution – this is my body, this is my blood, etc. are invoked around the middle of the prayer? Or at the final doxology?
In fact all these moments are vital to the Sacrament, as is the prayer that connects them. You can’t really isolate any one moment from the others. I like to think of it, as the Second Eucharistic Prayer puts it, “like the dewfall” – something we don’t notice while it’s happening but by the end we know a change has taken place.
The same is true as we receive the Blessed Sacrament. In small, subtle, often imperceptible ways we are changed. Saint Augustine says we “become what we receive.” But gradually. The more we share in the Body of Christ, the more we become that same Body of Christ.
This is what Saint Paul tells us in the second reading. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
A few lines later, Saint Paul goes on to say that whoever eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgement on himself. We are reminded to discern the Body of Christ in the Eucharist we receive; we are also reminded to discern that same Body of Christ in the assembly. All of us gathered here, we are the Body of Christ.
Looking at the larger context of this reading from Saint Paul, he is scolding the Corinthians for their divisions, the factions within their church. He is reminding them that their gathering is not just about eating and drinking our own little portion of the Sacrament. Do you not have houses in which you can eat and drink, he asks. If we’re not recognizing one another as members of the same Body of Christ, we might as well stay home and worship God in our own way.
There is a parallel here with the Gospel reading – the disciples want to dismiss the crowd so they can go find food and lodging, so they can all fend for themselves. But that is not Jesus’s way. Jesus gathers people to himself. He unites rather than divides. He heals those who need to be cured, and he feeds the people until all are satisfied.
And he sends us out, to be leaven for the world. There’s another gradual miracle. Mix some yeast into your bread dough and watch it, you probably won’t see much happening. But leave it for an hour and come back, you’ll notice the change.
That’s how we are called to bring God’s Kingdom into the World. To do for others what he has done for us, giving of ourselves as he has given himself to us.