Is being aware and honored and when we have asked today and our holy father has preceded us with the eucharist in Rome, and the celebration of the body and the blood of Christ, what a magnificent day and glory for us who are Catholics and who have the eucharist and this magnificent gift from the east to the west, this glory of God, that the priests are offering the bread and the wine and an unbroken lineage from Jesus at the last supper when he said take a knee. This is my body. Take a drink. This is my blood, and he gave that mandate to his apostles. Unbroken from that time, from apostle to the puzzle to bishops, to bishops, to priests all over the world, for these thousands of years, for these centuries, this sacrifice is being offered. And it is the same sacrifice as calvary. It is the celebration of his body and blood, the sacrifice of calvary, is being re presented is being re and acted is here celebrated in every altar. You know, false spirituality, all of us, not only protestants, but Catholics and orthodox who say I wish I was there when I could walk the road of calvary and see Jesus and be there on the hill of calvary. That's what the eucharist is. When you are at the eucharist at masts, when you are celebrating and you're in this when I now this morning celebrate the eucharist, this same sacrifice that Jesus had on calvary. In an unbloody sacrifice, here he is, take a knee, this is my body. Look at the host, take and drink. This is my blood. Look at the Chalice to come. Here before your very eyes is calvary. Here is Jesus on the cross. We are present, he looks at you and me from Calgary through the eucharist. Jesus in the mass is not something he is someone. He is the son of God. Offering himself up for the Salvation of the world. He is here in Omaha. He is here in your parish. He is here on this altar. This magnificent gift which he has given us. It is the most of blessed of all the sacraments. We call it the most blessed sacrament because it is the sacrifice and it is also a sacrament. When you receive the body and blood of Christ, this manna that he has given us from heaven. The body and blood of Christ, Corpus Christi in Latin means the body of Christ, song, Christian, the blood of Christ. Jesus body and blood is here offered on our altar. We don't wish a bread. This is Jesus when the bread, which he gave us, I will give you bread from heaven, says Jesus. And this bread is my body, this bread is my flesh for the life of the world. Read, chapter 6 in John gospel. Your father's 8 man in the desert. He told the Jews, and they died, but I am the living bread come down from heaven. I am the bread of life. I am the bread that the father is going to give you. And so this bread is Jesus. It is his flesh. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have life in him, and I will raise him up on the last day. My brothers and sisters, you who are my fellow Catholics, you actually eat the flesh of Jesus and drink his blood, our faith tells us. This is what we are doing. Eat my flesh, drink my blood. How close do I want to be with you? It's not cannibalism. It's love. The eucharist is the love first of God for me. The father saying to me, I want you this close to my son. I want you so united with my son. You are my daughter. You are my child. Take an eat his flesh and drink his blood, become one with him, as the father gazes at us, gathered at the eucharist today. He sees only one Jesus. When does that begin in the father's eyes? This is the deepest truth about you and me. He sees it through our baptism. He took you to himself when he united you with his son, Jesus, in baptism. When you were united with him through the power of the Holy Spirit in confirmation. Think of yourself as a married person when you were your united with him, the intimacy of the marriage union of the sacrament of marriage. The two become one flesh, but that fleshly union of a husband and wife, which is sacramentally that union, it is your flesh union that is the sign of your oneness in Christ as the husband and wife for one, so that union that you have is only a shadow a mystery, a shadow of the eucharist. The eucharist is such an intimacy and a union between you and Jesus. The spousal relationship of a husband and wife is the sign of what the eucharist is, so much do I love you, Jesus says, to his spouse, the church, that I have united you with me through water that came forth from his side and the blood which is the eucharist, the eucharistic side, take and drink. Eat my flesh and my blood. So intimate do I, your spouse, Jesus, want to be with you. That's the sacrament. First Jesus gives us the eucharist, his death on the cross. The sacrifice. At mass. Second, Jesus gives us holy communion. The union with him. He, my flesh, drink my blood. Your father, who so loved you that heals loves you in him. And through him and with him and the sign of this, this Sunday is gathering in the father's arms all of us in Christ, bringing us to himself. You are not only one with shim here on earth. This Sunday. This is the majesty and the beauty of every eucharist. It is a banquet celebrated in heaven. By the sacred, holy ones there. They are united and it is a forever sacrament. It is a sign of your forever life. It's a sacrament not only that unites you hear, but it is a pledge of eternal life. Every time you receive communion, listen to the prayers of mass forever and ever, through him and with him and in him. In the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours forever and ever. We, in this sacrament, are entering into eternal life. Every time you go and approach the altar, when you take either in your hand, as you receive the body and the blood of Christ, when you take him on your tongue and take him into yourself, the into me see the intimacy is the union of you and Jesus. What a tremendous eucharistic gift this is, the body and blood of Christ. Finally, it is the presence of our lord in the eucharistic sacrament on the altar. This magnificent gift, what makes our temple our church so unique the eucharistic presence of Jesus Christ, staying with us, remaining with us 24/7 on our altar. The little red light in the sanctuary of every Catholic Church throughout the world is a sign that I want to abide with you. I want to remain with you. I just don't want to come and go. The Sunday mass that you will attend and be at and participate in today. I want to remain with you. As lovers, as lovers say, I am with you. All day. I am with you all through the day. And all through the night, can you imagine Jesus as a prisoner on our altar of love? Staying there, waiting for you. He sees you approaching. When you come at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, to visit with him. And in some of the churches, there's exposition 24/7. Any time of the day or night, you can go and be with him. How many of us want to have a visit maybe with some particular priest who has been a special guide to us, and it's so important that I make that how many of us want to see a doctor and if I could just get an appointment with him and so often his schedule is so crowded. How many of us need legal advice? And I want to see this particular lawyer. She's the greatest physician. The greatest wisdom source, the greatest guide and allure it and friend is there 24/7. You can actually go to visit him in the blessed sacrament. There are throughout the world also today, processions of the eucharist where Jesus in what's called a monstrance, a golden raid center in which the eucharist is placed. He who is the golden rays of the whole world of light. Is there waiting for us? Yearning for us. Longing for us, wanting you to come. Wanting to actually advise you, heal you. Bless you, strengthen you, no matter what it is that you come to him with, to spend an hour with him. The eucharist is the presence of Christ in a very special way in his body and blood on our altars. So the eucharist is sacrifice, the eucharist is sacrament and the eucharist is the presence of Jesus among us. This gift which the father has given us through his son is the pledge to eternal life. I am leaving you, he says, but Jesus so loves us. He just doesn't want to go. When he left this world, he stayed with us in the eucharist. He has not left us. How do I enter more deeply into this celebration today? The key is faith. As I am with you now, I am with you in my presence. I am here. It is me. I have never left you. I am fully alive. Here in the eucharist waiting for you, come to me, all you who are burdened and find my burdensome. I will refresh you. I really believe today. This particular feast of the body and blood of Christ, that we can be renewed, refreshed. To live again, you know, all this false spirituality about wanting to have been there when Christ was on earth in those in those days of the gospel. No. The eucharist brings us to him in a living way. He in us we in him by the power of this blessed sacrament, the most holy of all the sacraments and it's been my experience as a priest for the 60 years that the eucharist which was given to me on the day of my ordination that this eucharist, which if I could only offer one mass, just one, that all my study and everything I had done would have been worth it. Just offer one mass. But to have been given the opportunity to offer mass each day when I think of this gift, I remember once I was this young seminarian in Washington, and this beautiful young lady who belonged to St. Augustine's parish, and I was giving her instructions, she was a student at Catholic university, and I talked to her about this magnificent gift. She just couldn't wait. She couldn't wait to be baptized. She couldn't wait to become a Catholic. But her desire, especially for that first day in which I baptized her, I went with her to the mass at St. Augustine's. And as we went up to receive communion, she was amazed, and when she was coming back, I was particularly noticing there were tears in her eyes, and we finished the mass, and we were outside, and she said, was that Jesus? You told me that was Jesus. Yes. She said what they all didn't go to communion. If that's Jesus, how come they didn't go to communion? How come? Some of us were listening to me. Don't go to mass. How come? If you are a Catholic, and if you are, truly believing that the eucharist is Jesus. How? How come? And I really also believe, especially how important it is if you're a eucharistic minister that those of your family, who are sick and suffering and homebound, that you will bring communion to them, that this is a time that they need the body and blood of Jesus. The sick and the suffering. He wants to feed them, he wants to heal them. He wants to bless them, all how much our lives are family, our communities would become. Alive in Jesus Christ. We'll return to building the kingdom of love with Monsignor Jones in just a moment. Litany of humility. Oh Jesus, meek and humble of heart. Hear me. From the desire of being esteemed. Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being loved. Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being extolled. Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being honored. Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being praised. Deliver meet Jesus. From the desire of being preferred to others. Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being consulted. Deliver meet Jesus. From the desire of being approved. Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being humiliated. Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being despised. Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of suffering rebukes. Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being calumniated. Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being forgotten. Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being ridiculed. Deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being wronged. The liver meet Jesus. From the fear of being suspected. Deliver me, Jesus. That others may be loved more than I. That others may be esteemed more than I. That in the opinion of the world, others may increase, and I may decrease. That others may be chosen and I, set aside. That others may be praised, and I, unnoticed. That others may be preferred to me in everything. That others may become holier than I, provided that I become as holy as I should. Jesus. Grant me the grace to desire it. Amen..