Today Sunday readings reflection: 06,22,14 The Body and Blood of Christ (CORPUS CHRISTI) Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:51-52 Today, we are celebrating the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. This special Feast is celebrated 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 made available to us on the altar at Mass and preserved there for our nourishment and worship. Our liturgy today recalls the scriptural origins of this devotion. In the first reading of today Moses reminds his people of God’s many gifts and particularly to remember the manna, the food that had been unknown to their ancestors, through which he fed them during their journey in the desert. St Paul in the second reading reminds us that we receive Christ under the form of bread and wine. Because we are joined to him, we are also united to one another, leading to the building of the mystical body of Christ. In the Gospel Jesus immediately after the miracle of the multiplication of loaves proclaims that he is the bread of life. Whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood will have the eternal life. 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. We relate to him through his Risen Body, which is the whole community bearing his name. Thus there is no place in Christianity for individualism. It is a horizontal faith: we go to God with and through those around us. That is the reason why Paul asks the community to share the meal together because Jesus broke the bread and shared, saying that it is his body. Same thing he did with wine, saying it is his blood. Through this sharing we become one with him. 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. As Pope Benedict XVI explains: “That is what is really happening in Communion, that we allow ourselves to be drawn into him, into his inner communion and finally into a state of inner resemblance”. 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. At the Last Supper Jesus taught His followers the manner in which the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist should be celebrated. He also told them that he would be physically present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and will be with them till the end of times. But his sacrifice was complete on Calvary when he shed his last drop of blood and water for the sake of humanity. The manna was not only material food giving physical life, but was a symbol of God’s word, which was the means of a superior spiritual life: the life of communion with God through the covenant.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 19:22:18 +0000
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