First Reading – 3 Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16;
Second Reading – 1 Corinthians 10:16-17;
Gospel – John 6:51-58
Today, we are celebrating the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. This special Feast is held in remembrance of Jesus who gave His life for our salvation and commanded us to celebrate the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in his memory. The Feast owes its existence to Blessed Juliana of Liege, who began devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in around 1230. Largely through her insistence, in 1264 Pope Urban 1V commanded its observance by the universal church.
The Feast sums up three important confessions about our Faith. First is that God became physically present in the person of Christ, true God and true Man. Secondly, God continues to be present in His people as they form the Mystical Body of Christ in his church. Thirdly, the presence of God under the form of bread and wine is available to us on the altar at Mass and preserved for our nourishment and worship.
Eucharist in the church can be understood as a communal sacrificial meal, offered by the community of believers along with the priest, to the heavenly Father together with Jesus for the remission of sins and as an offering of gratitude and thanksgiving. The Eucharist is essentially, and of its very nature, a community action in which every person present is expected to be an active participant and the priest presides over it. We are here, on the one hand, recalling what makes us Christians in the first place – our identification with the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. And that identification with Jesus is expressed not through a one-to-one relationship with him but in a community relationship with him present in all those who call themselves Christian.
The Feast of Corpus Christi reminds us that we as Christians possess an immense treasure. Jesus himself, through the Eucharist, grants to us the most powerful experience of intimacy possible within our earthly existence. In his teaching Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from Heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” With these words Jesus offered his own life for the sins of the humanity.
In today’s Gospel John picks up the theme of manna, and contrasts the bread the Israelites ate in the desert with the new bread of life given by Jesus. John says that, in the person of Jesus, there is a new Word of God and new bread from heaven. This Word of God has become flesh; and the new bread of heaven is the very life of Jesus himself. To eat this bread, says John, is to have a share in the life of God’s own self, and to share eternal life. These verses contain the climax of Jesus’ ‘Bread of Life’ discourse, which announced a bold promise of eternal life for all who believe in him and partake of his presence in the Eucharist. In unmistakable language, Jesus identifies himself with the elements of our Eucharistic sacrifice, namely, the bread and wine. We feed on Jesus by believing or “taking in” his Word and acting on it, and by believing in and “taking in” his divine presence in the bread and wine. Just as we and the substances we eat and drink become one, so Jesus and those who feed on him form an intimate union. Jesus tells the people and the disciples that unless they eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, they will have no life in them. Every Eucharist is a unique celebration. When the celebrant takes a little piece of unleavened bread and repeats the words that Jesus spoke at the Last Supper, “This is my body”, and when he takes a small of amount of wine in a chalice and says, “This is my blood”, the bread is no longer bread and the wine is no longer wine. At every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we participate in a marvellous miracle, the miracle called Transubstantiation. This is truly God’s gift to us. Thus Eucharist is a gift, not just to be adored and revered, but also to be consumed, digested and lived by every Christian. In this Communal Sacrificial Meal celebrated by the Community, we have the presence of Jesus who is the victim, the altar and the priest. He offers himself to the Father as a special offering for the reconciliation of the world. It is offered and shared in a community with no difference of caste and creed and language as a fulfilment of the final mission of Jesus to save the world. Therefore everyone is called upon to prepare themselves to receive the Lord worthily.
As we break the bread at the Eucharistic table we ask the grace to be worthy of the Lord’s mystery and be His instruments to bring His unity and charity in the world. As we continue with the celebration of the Holy Mass, let us be thankful to the Lord Jesus for His Body and Blood that assures us our salvation.