The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Today's Mass Readings

Today we celebrate the feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus. And really the focus is on presence – Divine presence among us. But just as human presence, the readings take us to the different levels of divine presence. I want to reflect on these levels of presence and invite you to deeper levels of Christ’s presence. In today’s first reading we encounter the first level of divine presence. Moses held the words of the covenant, offered a blood sacrifice and sprinkled the blood upon the people as a sign of the covenant. In none of these actions, did the people experience real presence. The people heard God through Moses. They offered a sacrifice of animals. They sprinkled the blood of animals to seal a covenant. That is how deep they could do in their relationship with the Divine.

The second reading from Hebrews tells us about a deeper level of presence – God comes to us in an through Christ. Christ became the altar, Christ became the sacrificial victim, Christ became the priest. But this altar, this victim and this priest is unlike the altar, animals, and priest of today’s first reading. People touched the real person of Christ. People could look into Christ’s eyes. They could laugh and cry with him. They could touch him. They could even crucify him.

The third level originates with Jesus’ own action at the last supper. Jesus, just before he died, gathered his disciples, broke the bread, gave the cup and said to them “This is my body; this is my blood of the covenant.” This is a new kind of presence that human beings were thus far not familiar with. In this third level, Christ is no more just with the person, but rather, Christ is in the person.

Many Catholics around the world are content to remain on the superficial level of the Divine presence. But we are invited today to enter into the deeper levels of divine presence. Receiving Christ in body and blood is like marriage – we enter into a deep, intimate, and everlasting bond. Christ lives in us and we live in Christ through body and blood. On earth this is the deepest expression of God’s presence. Today, when we receive the body and blood of Christ let us enter into deep communion with our God.

- Fr. SAtish Joseph