We celebrate today the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ. The message of today is that Jesus is the Bread of Life that nourishes and sustains us. It is only in the strength of this divine sustenance that we can go through our pilgrimage in this world as children of God.
As we reflect on the Eucharist, we are reminded of those passages of Scripture where the Lord invites his people to come to Him for the food that truly satisfies. They include Isaiah 55:1-3; John 4:10; John 7:37; Rev.22:17; and John 6:26. The Word of God which the book of Proverbs calls Wisdom, is sometimes presented as a lavish banquet to which everyone is invited. The one who does not possess this Word of God is the ignorant and foolish person. Such a person is admonished to abandon the way of ignorance and folly and embrace the Word of God. It says: "Come and eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared! Leave your folly and you will live, walk in the ways of perception." *************************
In Dt. 30:15-20 Moses had told the people of Israel to choose between the way of life and the way of death. Joshua demanded that the people make the same choice between the ways of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the ways of the pagan gods whom the Canaanites worshipped (Joshua 24:14-18). Joshua understood that to choose Yahweh and keep his commandments is to choose life. Death on the other hand is the consequence of rejecting Yahweh. In the New Testament the two ways are presented as the wide and spacious way that leads to destruction, and the narrow way that leads to life, which only a few people do find. (Mt.7:13). Choosing sin is choosing imprisonment and unhappiness. As St. Augustine says "The Lord has created us for Himself and our hearts are restless, until they rest in Him." To be truly alive and to be truly free means to choose Christ, the Word of God, and His way of sacrificial love. It is true that in the history of humanity, no person has ever found genuine happiness in sin or in sinful living. By its very nature, sin is a deprivation that haunts us and gives us no lasting rest, no lasting joy, no lasting peace. By sin we reject the greatest possible good, which is God Himself.
The Evangelist John says that the Word of God has become flesh (John 1:14). This Word-made-flesh is to become a sacrificial meal for the salvation of all who believe. In John 6:51-58, the Lord goes ahead to further confound the already shocked Jewish listeners by speaking of the eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood in the most graphic language that for the outraged Jewish listeners borders on cannibalism. He says: "I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world." And when the confused and scandalized Jews argued among themselves what this strange declaration could mean, Jesus insisted by saying: "I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day." This was too much for the Jews to take, yet when seen in the context of the paschal mystery, that is, in the context of the last supper, the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the truth of Jesus' claim in John 6:51-58 becomes clear.
Jesus the Son of God has become the new lamb of sacrifice. And just as in Exodus 12:1-28 the blood of the paschal lamb saved the Jews from the destroyer in Egypt, so shall the blood of Jesus save all those who believe. Just as in Exodus 24:1-8 the blood of bullocks was used to ratify the old covenant on mount Sinai, so has the blood of Jesus been used to ratify or seal the new covenant. The Eucharist is therefore the enactment of the new covenant in Christ's blood. And every time we celebrate this mystery, we make present the saving body and blood of Jesus, and all who eat the body and drink the blood, all who partake fully in this sacrificial meal, have the assurance of full life here on earth, and the promise of eternal salvation. When we receive the Holy Eucharist, we are really and truly receiving the same Jesus who was on earth 2000 years ago. It is the same Jesus, with the same Body, the same Blood, the same Soul, the same Divinity.
The Eucharist is the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. It is the celebration of the Supreme Sacrifice by which the Son of God not only offered himself for the salvation of humankind on the cross, but also as a gesture of total self-giving He gave His flesh and blood as the permanent Sacrament of His presence that nourishes and sustains us in our journey through this life, and serves as medicine for immortality. The Eucharist is the root, the heart, the centre and the summit of Christian worship. The sacrifice of Christ's Body and Blood is the fount and the apex of the whole Christian life and practice. The celebration of the Eucharist which we call the Mass, is a prayer, the supreme prayer of the Christian Church, the Christian prayer par excellence. It is at one and the same time a prayer of thanksgiving to God for the salvation wrought in Christ Jesus, a prayer of adoration and praise to the Almighty God whose greatness is beyond compare, and a prayer of petition for the cleansing of our sins, and for the provision of our spiritual and material needs.
The Eucharist is at one and the same time a sacrificial offering and a thanksgiving offering. It is the only sacrifice capable of taking away the sins of the world. It is also the thanksgiving offering to the One whose love for the world prompted this supreme sacrifice. In this unique sacrifice, Jesus Christ is at one and the same time the priest and the victim, the One presiding over the sacrifice, and the lamb that is slain. The Eucharist is a holy banquet or a love feast. The Eucharist is a fellowship or a communion. The Eucharist is a gift - the greatest gift of God to humanity, and the greatest gift that humanity can make to God.
Yes indeed, the Eucharist is the privileged communion of men and women with their God. It is God's "kiss of peace" with the world. It is the love feast that marks the reconciliation of human beings with God and with one another. The Eucharist is the establishment of the new people of God, the celebration of the new covenant in Christ's blood. It is the pledge of future glory for the children of God. The Eucharist is the paradigm of love, the love that is the very life of God, the love that makes the world go round, the love that all believers are called to live.
The implications and challenges of the Eucharist are many. The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ imposes upon believers and partakers a new perception of reality, a new logic of existence, and a new ethic of life. The Eucharist highlights both the vertical and horizontal dimensions in our devotional life. The Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ's total self-giving challenges us to freely surrender our own lives to God. It challenges us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our might and with all our strength. This is the vertical dimension. The Eucharist also challenges us to love our neighbour in the same way as Christ loves us and gave His life in ransom for us. This is the horizontal dimension. By giving his flesh and blood, Jesus Christ identifies completely with humanity, and now says that whatever we do to the least of his brethren, we do unto him (Mt.25:40).
The solution to the world's numerous problems are to be found in sacrificial love. Anything less will not bring the desired restoration, reconciliation and peace. The Eucharist challenges us to choose this sacrificial love in place of a life devoted to the cult of the (false) self. For a life devoted to the cult of the self is what we call a life of sin. In place of the idolatry of the self therefore, the Eucharist calls us to become food to be eaten for the life of the world. It calls us to become active agents of wholesome existence, freedom and salvation for the world. To eat Christ means to take in Christ, wholly and entirely with His logic of love, poverty, justice, chastity, obedience, meekness, humility, forgiveness, mercy and compassion. To eat Christ means to be totally absorbed in the logic of the. To eat Christ means to be totally conformed to Christ in such a way that one would be able to say with St. Paul: "I live now, not my own life, but the life of Christ who lives in me," or, "Life to me of course is Christ..." (Gal.2:20; Phi.1:21).
Eucharistic devotion is complete only when such devotion expresses itself in the love of neighbour, in the sharing of life and resources with the neighbour, in the readiness to forgive the neighbour, in the willingness to deny oneself of comfort and privileges, and to engage in selfless service for the well-being and salvation of the neighbour. In an environment of corruption and injustice, Eucharistic devotion is complete only when one hungers and thirsts for righteousness. In an environment where true commitment is lacking, where relationships are so easily broken, where there is hatred and enmity, and where there are wars and violent crimes, Eucharistic devotion is relevant only when it lead to untiring commitment on the part of the partaker toward reconciliation, unity, and peace. Eucharistic devotion is true only when we make Jesus' Sermon on the Mount our programme of life Kingdom (See Matthew 5:3-12).
Further Reading: Mt.26:26-29; Mk.14:22-25; Lk.22:14-20; I Cor.11:23-27.
