RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ro­man Catholic Fa­ther David Khan has called on parish­ioners to pur­sue spir­i­tu­al trans­for­ma­tion and avoid gos­sip, ask­ing them to re­flect on the Eu­charist not on­ly as a sa­cred rit­u­al but as a call to per­son­al and com­mu­nal change.

As the Mass be­gan un­der light show­ers on Thurs­day, which Fa­ther Khan de­scribed as “Cor­pus Christi rain,” he chal­lenged the con­gre­ga­tion to strive to be bet­ter ver­sions of them­selves.

“Will we con­tin­ue to be the same per­son that we are, or will we be­come bet­ter?’ he asked.

Speak­ing about the solem­ni­ty that ho­n­ours the Body and Blood of Christ, Fa­ther Khan con­nect­ed the Eu­charist to both di­vine life and dai­ly liv­ing.

“We have to be trans­formed from con­sump­tion to com­mu­nion,” he said, em­pha­sis­ing that re­ceiv­ing the Eu­charist is not an end­point but “the be­gin­ning of a life­long trans­for­ma­tion.”

He re­mind­ed those gath­ered that the cel­e­bra­tion is not about a sym­bol or a metaphor.

“This is the Body of Christ. This is Je­sus,” he said.

“We are con­sum­ing Eu­charist but we are not be­ing moved to com­mu­nion be­cause some peo­ple re­ceive com­mu­nion longer than oth­ers but yet still they are the most mis­er­able per­son you can find.”

With a point­ed call for au­then­tic­i­ty in faith, Fa­ther Khan warned against a dis­con­nect be­tween be­lief and be­hav­iour.

“What will our con­ver­sa­tions be?” he asked, re­fer­ring to the Eu­charis­tic pro­ces­sion that would fol­low the Mass.

“Will it be one of prayer and song? Or will it be one of gos­sip? Are we go­ing to show our­selves, or are we go­ing to show Christ?”

Cor­pus Christi, which means “Body of Christ” in Latin, is a ma­jor feast in the Ro­man Catholic cal­en­dar that cel­e­brates the re­al pres­ence of Je­sus in the Eu­charist. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, it in­cludes out­door pro­ces­sions and pub­lic ex­pres­sions of faith.

Fa­ther Khan used fa­mil­iar metaphors from lo­cal life to ex­plain deep­er spir­i­tu­al truths.

“We plant, we grow, we trans­form,” he said, com­par­ing the Eu­charist to a seed sown in the soil of the hu­man heart.

“When you re­ceive the Eu­charist, Je­sus the liv­ing bread sows him­self in­to the soil of your heart.”

He chal­lenged at­ten­dees to con­sid­er what type of soil they are pro­vid­ing for that di­vine seed.

Fa­ther Khan al­so warned against su­per­fi­cial forms of faith and rit­u­al.

“Re­ceiv­ing com­mu­nion is not the end of the process,” he said.

“Just as seeds must be wa­tered and ex­posed to light, so the Eu­charist must be nour­ished in us by on­go­ing con­ver­sion, de­vo­tion and obe­di­ence to God.”

He ref­er­enced the Gospel pas­sage of the five loaves and two fish, say­ing that the mir­a­cle be­gan on­ly when the lit­tle that was of­fered was placed in Je­sus’ hands.

In his fi­nal ap­peal, Fa­ther Khan called on parish­ioners to be­come “liv­ing taber­na­cles” and take the grace they re­ceive in­to their homes, work­places and com­mu­ni­ties.

The Mass con­clud­ed with the tra­di­tion­al Eu­charis­tic pro­ces­sion through the streets of San Fer­nan­do, with parish­ioners singing hymns and car­ry­ing the Blessed Sacra­ment.