(Begin by holding up a pair of my work boots.)  These are my work boots. I wear them to work in. I wear them to cut the grass, to put down mulch, to rake leaves, to paint and to help others build. They have been to our farm, to my mother’s house, to Biloxi, where I helped with Katrina relief ,and to Haiti, where I’ve done some volunteer work. 

            Why do I show you these boots? To toot my horn and let you know that I do work? Hardly…I share with you these boots, as  a means to talk about the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus that we come to celebrate, and to ask, "is the Eucharist working in our Christian lives?"

            Is the Eucharist working? Some say that it’s not. They say this because of published reports that 50% of Catholics no longer believe that the bread and wine really become the Body and Blood of Jesus, His Soul and Divinity.

            Others say that it’s not working because of the absence of Eucharistic piety in our Church: the failure to genuflect when entering and leaving the church, the routine way that we come forward to receive communion, the casual conversations that happen right in front of the tabernacle after Mass. They also point to the fact that people don’t turn out for devotions to the Eucharist like they used to: Benediction, adoration and public processions like that which happens on Corpus Christi Sunday.

            It is lamentable that there does seem to be a failure in our Church to communicate that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist.  But what is even more lamentable is that for those whose belief in the Eucharist is rock solid have a hard time grasping the connection between the Eucharist and justice, between the presence of Jesus in the bread and wine and the work that we do or even don’t do in our world.

            Curiously there seems to be a dangerous disconnect taking place with the Eucharist and its working effect in our world.  I came across some words of a Sri Lankan bishop who wrote: "Why is it that, in spite of the hundreds of thousands of Eucharistic celebrations that happen in our world, Christians continue in our selfish ways?  Why if so many people are receiving the Eucharist, does the gap of income, wealth, knowledge, health care and power continue to grow in our world?  Why is it that those who proclaim Eucharistic love deprive the poor of food, water, money, employment and land?"

            The Eucharist is not for our individual consumption. The Eucharist is not about me and God. The meaning of the Eucharist is captured in a story I heard about a gentlemen, who, after receiving communion, went back to his pew and could be heard audibly saying as other communicants passed by him, "the body of Christ; the body of Christ; the body of Christ. " In receiving the Eucharist, we become Christ, and, like Christ, we are to share our lives with one another.

            The feeding of the 5000, the miracle that Jesus worked in the multiplication of the five loaves and the two fish, is Eucharistic and directs us to it’s working power in our world.  Jesus took the little that he had, he blessed it and he gave to those who were hungry, and there was so much food left over that it filled 12 wicker baskets.  Jesus was showing that crowd of people, and he is showing us, what the Kingdom of God can be when we receive him.  In receiving the Eucharist, we become Jesus, and, like the fragments of bread that were left over in the feeding of the 5000, we share what we have so others can have more.

            Is the Eucharist working? That question can only be answered by each of us asking ourselves, "how is the Eucharist working in our lives?" If we put the Eucharist back to work, then Catholics and all people would truly see its saving power and Divine presence.