Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Today's Mass Readings

If you have been to the groceries lately you may have noticed that the price of food items has risen enough to make us think twice about what and how much we buy. What we in more stable countries perceive as a price rise is only a symptom of what the United Nations has warned to be a serious food crisis. For example, food prices have risen by an average of 83% in the past three years. At least 100 million people could be tipped into poverty as a result. Food riots have broken out in at least a dozen countries. A range of factors have been blamed, including poor harvests, partly due to climate change, rising oil prices, the dash to produce biofuels at the expense of food crops, and speculation on commodities markets. The fact that there is much money to be made at the cost of other people prompted Jean Ziegler , a UN's official to comment, "This is silent mass murder." It is my opinion that our inability to banish hunger is a grave collective sin and that providing food security to the poor of the world would in itself be a great act of evangelization. Today we celebrate the feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus. In many ways it is fair to say that the history of today’s feast has its origins in very basic human needs. Whether we want to trace the origins of the feast to the first Passover or to the manna in the desert the need being fulfilled was similar. The Passover was God’s intervention to free an oppressed and enslaved people from bondage. The manna in the desert was God’s intervention to feed a hungry people. God first responds to the basic human needs of a people that did not even know God.

However, providing for those basic needs was the first step in building a relationship. Both the first Passover and the manna in the desert lead up to the climax of the Covenant on Mount Sinai. It is in the making of the Covenant that we see God’s desire to enter into a deeper relationship with Israel and with humanity at large. My main point here is that the deeper the relationship between God and his people, the deeper the commitment that is required. Thus, the first Covenant was sealed with the blood of animals. But there came a time when God took his relationship to new heights. God’s took his commitment beyond mighty deeds, prophetic words and the blood of animals. God’s covenantal commitment beccame filial. As we reflected on last week’s gospel, God gave us his only Son. The new covenant was sealed not by the blood of animals but the body and blood of Jesus.
This new covenant is made at the last supper. God’s relationship with humanity reached the deepest level in this new covenant. God gives his own body and his own blood.

This feast, then, is not merely a celebration of the material body and blood of Jesus. It is the celebration of the history of God’s relationship with us which begins with basic human needs and ends with our invitation into God’s own life in eternity.

Let me offer three practical implications for today.

1. The first point emerges from today’s first reading: the people of Israel on a journey! For forty years they wandered in the desert. As the reading suggests, they were tested by affliction. Hunger, thirst, serpents and scorpions tested them. But God did not bring them out to starve or die of thirst. He did not make them wander in the desert to expose them to dangers. In the midst of these afflictions the people of Israel would also discover their God. He was a faithful god who when they were hungry fed them, when they were thirsty brought forth water from the rocks, when faced with danger protected them with a pillar of cloud, when faced with darkness appeared as a pillar fire. The hardships of the desert were a preparation to enter the Promised Land. We are also on a journey. Our journey of life too is a preparation for the Kingdom of God. This journey too is like a wandering in the desert. We starve for love, we thirst for justice, we feel insecure, we face difficulties: but through it all, the Lord is with us in many ways. But today God reminds us of his real presence among us. Just like God gave the Israelite manna and water, God gives us the very Body and Blood of Jesus. Of all the things we do to make life meaningful the essence of life must be derived from this altar.

2. Sometime back a survey pointed out that only 30% of the church going Catholics actually believed that the bread and the wine at the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ. So the bread and wine; is it the really the body and blood of Christ? Of course it is! Who said so? Jesus said so. He took the bread and said, “This is my body; eat it!” And he took the cup and said, “This is my blood, take it drink it!” Sometimes we can be like the Jews who as the gospel suggests quarreled among themselves saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus simply says, “Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. For my flesh is real food, and my blood real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” (Jn 6: 53-54). As far as I am concerned I need no further explanation. His word will suffice.

3. The third point deals with the action of Christ as he gave us his body and blood at the last super. Jesus took the bread blessed it and gave it to his disciples saying, this is my body broken for you.” And so with the cup. But as he did that he was talking about his own self-giving. He was taken; his body was broken. He was wounded; his blood was shed! Today St. Paul says, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break,
is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (I Cor 10:16). As we participate in the One body and blood of Christ let us remember that we now become the One body of Christ. And now Christ takes me, blesses me, breaks me… and he gives me to the world. Our altar is not just this piece of stone here. Our altar is also at home with our spouses and children where we sacrifice ourselves for each other. Out altar is the table at work or school where we pour our blood for the good of the world. Out Our altar is the hungry people waiting for their manna which we must provide from within ourselves. Our alter is the poor of the world, the lonely, and the helpless. It is there we must break ourselves.

As we break bread today on this altar, let us first think of Christ breaking himself for us. Then let us think of ourselves being broken for the world. Then let us think of those that Christ breaks us for!

Fr. Satish Joseph