Fr Abbots Exhibition Homily

Some of you present tonight are coming to the end of your time in this valley as you prepare to take your exams and then leave for a completely new chapter of your life. Some of you may be parents or even grandparents and this may be your last Exhibition. It is therefore more than appropriate to give you a parting gift. A gift that I hope you will treasure. A gift that will remind you of what the Benedictine community here at Ampleforth Abbey, with all its short comings and failures which have been so apparent in recent days and for which I offer my profound apology, a gift we have tried to share with you over the years that you have been studying at the College. A gift, dare I say, far more important than any prize you might receive tomorrow.

I have thought long and hard about this gift and it is the most precious thing I could think of the only gift that will give meaning purpose and joy to your life. Are you ready to receive it? It is the gift of Jesus Himself.

Over the years you have attended many Masses in the Abbey Church. You have had Mass in your various Houses or elsewhere when you have been on House Retreats. I want to tell you now, though you might not believe me, the Mass is the greatest gift we have. Why? Because it brings us into direct and personal relationship with the one whose love brought us into existence and the one whose heart and love will never abandon us.

The Eucharist was the last gift that Jesus left behind for His disciples on the night before he would be arrested. It was not a memorial gift – a keepsake – an anniversary memento. It was the very means whereby they and all generations of disciples could call into the present and live the sacrifice of love. The Eucharist brough about a living encounter.

So it was that on 10^th May this year the Vatican officially approved a new Eucharistic miracle that took place in 2013 in Vilakkannur, Kerila, India. While celebrating Mass Fr Pathickal held up the host during the Eucharistic Prayer and as he did so, he noticed a spot on the host. It became larger and brighter and then to his utter amazement a face appeared, it was clearly and unmistakably the face of Jesus. There followed 12 years of investigation, which included scientific and medical examinations.

What is unique about this miracle, unlike most Eucharistic miracles, is that the host did not bleed or have human tissue, only a face, radiant and unmistakenly human face appeared on the host. Scientific examination confirms that the host has not been altered or tampered with, there has been no pigment added – only a gentle mystery – a face of suffering love.

Friends, God never stops speaking to us of his love, of His desire to reach out to us. Now in this latest miracle Jesus seems to say: “The blood is no longer enough; the flesh is no longer enough. Now I am showing you my face, because I want you to look at me looking at you.” I think of words from Carlo Acutis who had a profound love of the Eucharist:

And so the Eucharist… truly becomes not so much a Sacrament in the ritual sense but rather a Sacrament in the supernatural sense…we become his house, his home, and so Jesus, present, alive, and real, is not only a fact of faith, not only a fact of “sacramentality,” but a fact of “Life!” 

Carlo Acutis believed that simply being in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist will lead to transformation.

I cannot think, therefore, of a better gift to give you than to encourage you to stay close to Jesus because he wants to stay close to you. I hope you hear that. Stay close to Jesus because He wants to stay close to you. For when you leave this place which has attempted in different ways to remind you of your true identity, to respect your real dignity and to embrace your final destiny – then all I ask you to remember is that Jesus is the only answer to your deepest questions and He wants to stay close to you and will never abandon you.

St Augustine whose votive Mass we offer tonight came with that simple truth. Loved by God we are created to experience that love and there is nowhere that we do this so concretely than in the Eucharist. With each Eucharist Jesus simply says to us: “I am still here; I have not left you alone. I can never forget you.”

It sounds of course crazy. A God who lets himself be eaten, a God who enters our time and space, our mouth and our bodies. But this is the gift of the Eucharist. A gift that Augustine came to announce in his missionary journey to England. He was speaking not of a symbol, a metaphor, a ritual, but of Jesus who is real, alive and present. And so, if the face of Jesus appears on a host in far off Kerala, it is because he wants to say to you: Look at me looking at you. Encounter me. Love me. The face of Jesus appeared not for spectacle it appeared to draw us into to Him.

My friends you will leave Ampleforth College, but God’s love will never leave you. Wherever you go and whenever you go to Mass from today onwards you will remember the face of Jesus, the face of love looking out at you. Maybe you will never see the face of Jesus on the host. But everyone will see your face. You will be the face of Jesus when you smile, love, forgive, show compassion, when you live the gift that is given in the Mass. This is the miracle of the Eucharist – we become the one whom we consume.

From the host to our heart, from our heart to our face, from our face to the world. The gift I give you is Jesus; the request I make is be Jesus to those you meet.