Feast of Body & Blood of Our Lord

It is not for me to prove anything?

Certainly not a mystery so deep and at the core of our faith and our very being.

I am not a scholastic theologian like Aquinas, nor as thoughtful as Augustine.

 But, my inability to articulate this mystery in 5 minutes doesn’t mean it’s not true.

As a man of faith, no better or worse, not smarter and certainly not holier than any of you I rely on Jesus’ words that I hold to be the TRUTH.

“I am the Bread of life.  Whoever eats this bread will live forever and the bread I give is my flesh for the life of the world”

These words are the heart of the matter.  Cling to them.  Trust these words.

“I am the bread, given up for the life of the world”

This sacrifice makes me weep (in both unworthiness & in joy).

The first reading foreshadows what our response to this sacrifice should be -

 “We will do everything that the Lord has told us”

It is not my cleverness or intellect that I trust with my life. I put all my trust in what Our Lord has told us.

At table, having broken bread he gives it to them saying-

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT,

FOR THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.

Jesus takes up the cup

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT,

FOR THIS IS THE CUP OF MY BLOOD,

THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT,

WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU.

Jesus is clear that only with him, in him and through him alone – are we saved.

He then instructs the disciples to hand down this sacrifice to all who will follow.

DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.

These are the words we hear at every mass.  But sometimes we don’t really hear them at all or we brush aside their impact. But, we should never take them lightly.

Take and eat - Take and drink - Do this; these are directives, a call to act, to choose!

And - in memory of me - is not a fleeting  memory of a past event, like a vacation moment, but it is an “active” remembering, guided by the Holy Spirit, that makes Jesus known, real and present.  We don’t pretend – we do.

We do not sit at his Eucharistic table long ago in the past.  We sit at His table today. This day!

The Eucharist, the universal act of thanksgiving and sacrifice is at the center of the Great Church.  It is the heart of her sacramental life. In sharing the real body and blood of the risen Jesus we share in his life, death and resurrection, His sacrifice and his glory.

In the eating and drinking we encounter God in the most direct and tangible way - through our senses.

This direct encounter with God, through the Son is “The Source and Summit of our Lives”.

Everything flows towards the Eucharist and everything flows from it. 

We are people of the Eucharistic mystery.

We do not have to be clever to understand how it is done, but we do need to respond because it is done.

We respond by being reverent and active.

It is n joyful reverence that we encounter God at mass; in his assembly, his word and most profoundly when we receive  the body and blood of His Son.

But, to be joyful and reverent, we must be ready. Our attitude coming to mass, throughout mass and after mass, must be focused and attentive to what is happening – God is made present and in communion we literally are in communion with God. 

But this is not all. Jesus tell us -

 “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and me in them”

His remaining in us (working in us and through us) demands some choices on our part.

We must live out our Sunday or daily communion during the week so we do not come empty handed to the Eucharistic table.  Our hearts should be full of life and our hands should be full of the work we have done and we offer all this up, along with the body and blood of the risen Lord.  This combining of our life with the Son’s life in our Eucharistic prayer is our offering to the Father.  

One people one offering. And in eating His body we are made one body.

 In communion we are made a community.Not just a community of persons, but a communion of human and divine.  We are transformed by the body and blood of the gloried risen Lord.

 His body is not changed in my body, as some simple food.  I do not reduce it or transform it.

 This bread of life changes me.  I am transformed.  I am made new.  I am made one with Him.

“It is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me” Paul says.

So if we ask ourselves - why must we be focused and attentive at mass? Why do we receive the body of Christ?  Why must we take the Eucharistic banquet out into the world?

Because in sharing this living sacrifice of body and blood we share in the very life of God, who is all in all

We share in his very being; from the deepest distances of the cosmos to a seahorse the size of my thumbnail.

And we share in His Son’s glorified life and we share in his continuing work of salvation.

Sharing the body and blood of Our Lord, in communion  doesn’t remove from the world , but sends us forth into the world - transformed  so that we ourselves, in a human and limited way, become bread  given up for the life of the world. Let us live in the words of St Augustine

“Become - what we have eaten”