Sunday May 25, 2008, Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus: Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a; 1 Cor 10:16-17; John 6:51-58

We celebrate today the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. This feast is the feast of the Eucharist. For us Catholics, the Eucharist is an important aspect of our faith. Vatican II tells us that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our Christian lives. It is from the Eucharist that we draw strength that enables us to live our Christian calling and the Eucharist is a foretaste of that heavenly banquet we hope to participate in.

When we gather every Sunday, we gather as a Eucharistic community and not as a social club. We gather as the visible body of Christ on earth, the church and we share in the body, which is Christ. It is the Eucharist that makes us truly a church because our gathering is a Eucharistic gathering. St. Augustine rightly tells us, “You are yourselves what you receive.” What we receive is Jesus Christ and the Eucharist makes us Christ to the people we encounter. We rightly call the Eucharist, “Communion.” It is not an individual affair but a communal sacrament. The Body of Christ which the church signifies is a community. Many individuals make up this community, but by virtue of our baptism and election into new community, we are now one body, just as there is one loaf.

St. Paul tells us in the second reading of today, “we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” Our ethnic, social, political, cultural differences give way to the one Eucharist we share. Our biological relationships give way to the new relationships we assume in the Christian community. St. Augustine in one of his homilies on the Eucharist uses the analogy of the making of bread used for the Eucharistic sacrifice. He said, “Remember that bread is not made from one grain, but from many. When you were being exorcised, it’s as though you were being ground. When you were baptized, it’s as though you were mixed into dough. When you received the fire of the Holy Spirit, it’s as though you were baked. Be what you can see, receive what you are.” Those fully initiated into the church are like the one loaf of bread on the altar, a loaf that after consecration becomes the true body of Christ. The Body of Christ signifies both we the receivers, and that which is to be received. When we walk up the altar during communion to receive the Body of Christ, we are not just receiving Christ who comes to us sacramentally, but we are also receiving ourselves, because we are one body in Christ.

Vatican II reminds us that communion with God in the Eucharist brings us into communion with one another, and that communion with God in Christ is a communion in Christ’s own sacrifice and self-gift to his father. This communion should move us to give ourselves more deeply to God in Christ, and also to one another and to the world at large. Having received communion, the communion is then sent out to go in peace and love and serve the Lord. The Eucharist nourishes us to go out and be the Christ we have received to other people.

The teaching of Jesus Christ in the gospel was a very difficult teaching for his followers. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood …” The people could not understand what he meant. After giving this teaching, Jesus Christ lost some of his close friends. The reason is that, the teaching was too difficult for them to accept. Even in the early church, Catholics were called cannibals because the Romans thought they eat human meat and drink human blood. When Jesus Christ at the last supper said to his disciples, “This is my body, take and eat it …” he was not just offering them the shell in which there is a soul. The Hebrew meaning of the body is the totality of the whole person. He was saying to them, “this is my whole self, I am holding nothing back, I give it all to you.” In the same way, when he took the cup and said to them, “take this and drink from it, this is the cup of my blood …” he was offering them his life. Leviticus 17:11 says that, “the life of a creature is in the blood.” When Jesus offers his apostles his blood, he is offering them his whole life. He is giving to them a total gift of himself. The council of Trent uses the terminology, “Body, blood, soul and divinity.”

What we receive is not a symbolic reminder of what Jesus Christ did some two thousand years ago, it is truly the body and blood of Jesus Christ. During the Eucharist prayer, the bread and wine are truly changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ and the church calls this, “transubstantiation.” Transubstantiation means that there is a marvelous and unique change in the bread and wine. The Church rejects the idea that the substance of the bread and wine might remain together with the body and blood of Christ. This idea is known as consubstantiation and it is associated with Martin Luther. Our belief is that the bread and wine are indeed themselves most deeply changed and transformed into Christ himself. At the Mass, there is a real engagement with the one sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. It is not merely a symbolic reminder of a past event, but the once and for all sacrifice of Christ is truly present among us in all its power in the celebration of the Eucharist.

All through the history of the Church, the Fathers of the Church have emphasized the importance of the Eucharist. St. Ignatius of Antioch tells us that the Eucharist is the medicine of immortality. Whoever eats his body and drinks his blood, will live forever. These are the words of Jesus Christ to us. St. Cyprians tells us that it is a safeguard to those who receive it, it makes us fit for martyrdom. It strengthens us to stand firm in the face of temptations and challenges. St. Ambrose tells us that as often as we receive it, we herald the death of the Lord. If we herald his death, we herald the remission of sins. If whenever his blood is shed, it is shed for the remission of sins, then we ought to receive him so that he may always forgive our sins. Since we are always sinning, we always need the medicine. St. Ambrose is not endorsing receiving Eucharist when we are not in a state of grace. The church teaches that through the power of the Eucharist, venial sins are being wiped cleaned.

The Church encourages us to always show reverence to the Holy Eucharist. This is because it is truly the body and blood of Christ. That is why we genuflect when we walk by the tabernacle; that is why we take care that we do not have the particles of the Eucharist everywhere: we carefully rinse and consume the cup; we consume every particle left in the patten or corporal; we check our palms to see if there is any particle left in our palm and we consume it; we always have a light burning by the tabernacle to show the presence of Jesus Christ; we do not allow non-Catholics to receive the Eucharist because they do not share our faith with us; we do not go to other churches and receive what is only a symbol and not the true Eucharist; we do not chew gum when we are at Mass or when we are trying to receive the Eucharist; we fast for at least an hour before receiving the Eucharist, etc.

The Church encourages us to do devotions to the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the greatest apparition you will ever see. It is greater than Fatima and Lourdes. It is the true presence of Jesus Christ to us. The most known devotion to the Eucharist is Adoration. This devotion has always been part of the Church. In 1592, Pope Clement VIII decreed the Forty Hours. This devotion had started locally in Milan. Church law encourages parishes to have Eucharistic adorations. Canon law tells us to leave the church open every day so that people will come and make visits to the Blessed Sacrament. Many saints have shown us the importance of adoration. St. Francis Xavier after his duties as a priest in the day, will spend the night in adoration. St. John Vianney tells us that our Lord is hidden in the Blessed Sacrament waiting for us to come and visit him. St. Margaret Mary, a visitation nun found before the Blessed Sacrament the strength she needed to endure insults, contempt and reproaches. It was an opportunity also for her to pray for those who wished her ill.

Let us go out today and be truly a Eucharistic people.