THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST [A] Dt 8:2-3,14b-16a; I Cor 10:16-17 Jn 6:51-58)

 

Today we celebrate Corpus Christi – the feast of  The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

At the last supper Jesus established the Sacrament of Eucharist and symbolically shared His body and Blood with His disciples. He also commanded them to do it till the end of the world, in His memory. Food gives energy for sustenance. The Spiritual food Jesus offered, gives energy for spiritual sustenance.

 

God performed wonderful miracles for his Chosen People, feeding them with manna from heaven during their forty year journey to the Promised Land. And yet, they were still constantly complaining, constantly forgetting about God's goodness and falling into disobedience, self-centeredness and self-absorption.

Our life too is a journey, and our destination is the eternal Promised Land of Heaven. And God provides us with an even more miraculous food, a more wonderful manna, to give us his own divine strength - strength we need every day in order to resist temptation and faithfully fulfill God's will. Our manna is the Eucharist.

We believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. And today, when we celebrate the Feast of Body and Blood of Christ, we proclaim that conviction aloud. It is not mere symbol as many non-catholic faith communities teach. So they do not have a reservation of the holy Eucharist in their churches and they put away the remaining hosts from their services along with the other unused ones, as if no change happened to them. Ever since the very beginning of the Church, she believed in the real presence and so had the reservation of the Eucharist.

The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: ‘Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.’” Therefore, the bread and wine ceases to be bread and wine, although what we directly perceive, the appearances, remain the same, so that there is no perceptible change. In the transubstantiation the accidents, like color, smell, size or taste do not change. Only in the Eucharistic miracles which are rare incidents, that have taken place, the bread became visible flesh and wine tuned into blood. But in such cases the people could not eat or drink that transformed species where accidents also changed. They are kept for public viewing.  That is not the sole purpose of the Eucharist. When we went to Italy last year we saw the miracle that happened at Lanciano in the 700s. There are scores of other such miracles if you Google you can read many of them.

St Paul, in today's Second Reading, calls Holy Communion a "participation" in the body and blood of Christ. And this is why Jesus himself, in today's Gospel Reading, repeats six times - SIX times - that his flesh is real food and his blood is real drink. So it cannot be a mere symbol.

“He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in Him (Jn 6:56) and

“As I myself draw life from my Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from life.”

Jesus in the Eucharist is the everlasting fulfillment of the ancient prophecy that our Savior will be "Immanuel" - God with us.

Speaking of the Eucharist St. John Chrysostom says: Just as the bread comes from many grains, which remain themselves and are not distinguished from one another because they are united, so we are united with Christ.”  Just as numerous grains of wheat are pounded together to make the host, and many grapes are crushed together to make the wine, so we become unified in this sacrifice. Our Lord chose these elements in order to show us that we ought to seek union with one another, to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us into Our Lord Jesus Christ and to work with Him in the process.  Christ is the Head and we are the Body.  Together we are one.  I eat the body of Christ and you eat the body of Christ and the Christ is one we are all one. If we ate dead body of Christ we could still remain separate but we eat the living body of Christ and hence we cannot be two.

This imposes a serious obligation on us Christians – to receive the Holy Eucharist only if we are determined to live in peace with one another. If there is disunity, if our hearts are filled with malice towards others, if we indulge in injustice, if we our thoughts are impure, we have no right to partake in the breaking of the Bread. The sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is the living bread of eternal life. Therefore, it is meant for those who are pure of heart. Justin the martyr taught “It is allowed to no one else to participate in that food which we call Eucharist except the one who is living according to the way Christ handed on to us.” St Augustine preached, “Before you receive Jesus Christ, you should remove from your heart all worldly attachments which you know to be displeasing to Him.

Today, let's thank our Lord for this indescribable gift, and let's ask for the grace to grow in ever more deeper appreciation of the Eucharist.