June 7, 2015

The Most Holy Body and Blood Christ B

Exodus 24:3-8; Hebrews 9: 11-15; Mark 14: 12-16, 22-26

Today is the feast of Corpus Christi, The Body and Blood of Christ…I find it interesting to go back in my life and try to remember my First Holy Communion and the thousands of Communions I have received since them. Do I remember all of them…no…was I aware of what was happening each time I received…no again…did I receive all of them ‘worthily’…my Irish ‘guilt’ background would say no. I have been gifted and honored to be a priest for these 48 years and I have always felt a tremendous attachment to the Eucharist. It has always been the highpoint of my day. With that in mind, I am going to go a little deeper into this feast.

The readings today go back to the imagery of sacrifices that were used in the ancient Middle East covenants. The Hebrew word for covenant was berit which comes from another word which is best translated as to cut. When individuals entered into an agreement, both parties cut themselves and mingled their blood together making the covenant solid and solemn. I imagine this is much the same as from the ‘old west’ tales of having a ‘blood brother’ ceremony. This practice then developed covenants between parties and animal sacrifices. The sacrificed animal would be split in two and both parties would pass between the two halves symbolizing a ‘joining together’. Then the animals would be eaten; this represented the sealing of the covenant. Today’s first reading from Exodus gives the elaborate ritual sealing the covenant between God and His people. “I will be your God and you will be My people.” Moses sets up an altar at the foot of Sinai Mountain. It has twelve pillars representing the 12 sons of Jacob which had become the 12 tribes. Moses collects the blood of the animals and throws half of it on the altar; the remaining half he sprays on the people. This ritual binds God and the people as long as the people remain faithful to the covenant.

Paul’s letter to the Hebrews explains how Jesus by sacrificing Himself, establishes a new covenant. Mark’s Gospel completes the explanation by calling attention to the timing of the Last Supper, ‘”On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover Lamb” which brings to mind the covenant rituals of the Israelites. Here Jesus takes bread and wine and offers them to His disciples. Like the ancient covenants they were sealed with a meal, Jesus offering Himself as the sacrifice to seal this new covenant with His blood. This meal is the preparation for each person culminating in our celebration home to heaven.

This is the background; do I remember these each time I come to the Eucharist, not really. But I am aware that I am loved and called to receive Love and then sent to be love.

This reading is taken from Fr. Henri Nouwen’s book, The Road to Daybreak: “Berkley, California, June 1, 1986: ‘Today is the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ. While Edward Malloy, a visiting Holy Cross priest, Don, and I celebrated the Eucharist in the little Chapel of the Holy Cross house in Berkeley, the importance of this feast touched me more than ever. The illness that has severely impaired Don’s movements made him, and also me, very conscious of the beauty, intricacy, and fragility of the human body. My visit yesterday to the Castro district, where physical pleasure is so visibly sought and bodily pain so dramatically suffered, reminded me powerfully that I not only have a body but also am a body. The way one lives in the body, the way one relates to, cares for, exercises, and uses one’s own and other people’s bodies, is of crucial importance for one’s spiritual life.’ The greatest mystery of the Christian faith is that God came to us in the body, suffered with us in the body, rose in the body, and gave us His body as food. NO religion takes the body as seriously as the Christian religion. The body is not seen as the enemy or as a prison of the Spirit, but celebrated as the Spirit’s temple. Through Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection, the human body has become part of the life of God. By eating the body of Christ, our own fragile bodies are becoming intimately connected with the risen Christ and thus prepared to be lifted up with Him into the divine life. Jesus 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.’ (Jn 6:51)

It is in union with the body of Christ that I come to know the full significance of my own body. My body is much more than a mortal instrument of pleasure and pain. It is a home where God wants to manifest the fullness of the divine glory. This truth is the most profound basis for the moral life. The abuse of the body—whether it be psychological (e.g., instilling fear), physical (e.g., torture), economic (e.g., exploitation), or sexual (e.g., hedonistic pleasure-seeking)—is a distortion of true human destiny: to live in the body eternally with God. The loving care given to our bodies and the bodies of others is therefore a truly spiritual act, since it leads the body closer toward its glorious existence.

I wonder how I can bring this good news to the many people for whom their body is little more than an unlimited source of pleasure or an unceasing source of pain. The feast of the Body of Christ is given to us to fully recognize the mystery of the body and to help us find ways to live reverently and joyfully in the body in expectation of the risen life with God.”

So I reflect on:

• If I really believe that Christ’s blood was shed for all, what day-to-day differences would this make in how I treat people?
• What does Jesus ask of me today? He says it simply in John 15:12, “This is my commandment. Love one another as I love you.” This is a daily, hourly reflection…how am I doing…where do I need God’s help?
• Alice Camille in Exploring the Sunday Readings asks three searching questions: “1) How many forever commitments have you made? What is their cost? 2) Jesus Christ is fully present to His Church. How present are you to Him? 3) How do you decide what to keep and what to make available for others?”
• Am I letting God nourish me? Am I nourishing others with me or with what comes from God?

John Henry Cardinal Newman has a prayer that helps me: “God has created me to do some definite service; God has committed some work to me which has not been committed to another. I have my mission—I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. God has not created me for naught. I shall do good. I shall do God’s work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve the Lord; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve the Lord; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve the Lord. God does nothing in vain. Therefore I will trust in the Lord.”