Mark 14: 12-16, 22-26
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060621.cfm
The wonderful video above is a good reflection for this Sunday celebration of "Corpus Christi," the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. There are endless aspects of this most central sacrament to our faith life as Catholics - the "source and summit of our spiritual life." We have inherited twenty centuries of Christian lived experience passed down to us: tradition, spirituality, saints, theologians, scripture scholars, doctors of the Church and every day Catholics who for more than two thousand years have gathered around the Altar of the Lord to break open his sacred Word and to be fed with Christ himself in the Holy Eucharist.
Today in our first reading from Exodus, we hear of blood sacrifice. What was a common occurrence in public worship, to sacrifice animals such as bulls, cattle and sheep, as a sacrifice on behalf of the people in order to appease a God who is angered by human sin, seems primitive and strange to our ears today. Such things would repulse present day sensibilities and in the end seem useless and cruel.
However, in ancient Jewish Temple ritual such things were ordinary as blood poured out was seen as life given. For blood, even in ancient times, was recognized as a source of life itself. Today we know that blood is essential as it carries nutrients throughout the body and is an indicator of both health and illness. So, the life of the animal sacrificed on behalf of human sin was seen as a way to wash away guilt and reestablish a right relationship with God.
So Moses, taking seriously the renewed promise of the people to live the Covenant with God, takes the blood of the slaughtered animal, spreads it on the altar of sacrifice, then seals that relationship by sprinkling that sacrificed blood upon the people, thereby connecting the people with sacrifice, life and God's covenant; forever sealing it. What has this primitive and strange worship have to do with our beautiful feast of the Eucharist this Sunday?
As the video above explains, on the cross, the perfect man's blood (Jesus) was shed as he sacrificed, once for all time, his own human/divine life and then connects and renews the covenant with us each time we consume that life given in the Holy Eucharist: Take and eat - Take and drink: my Body and my Blood. The unbloody sacrifice of the Mass is our moment of remembrance and renewal each time we celebrate and gather as God's people. Blood (life) lived, life given, life sacrificed, life offered for all, life now offered each time as food, the very and true presence of him who died and rose for us. What more can be said for what has been done?
We are a Eucharistic people and in fact being the living presence of Christ among us, it is everything. Yes, the Eucharist is everything because in God there is nothing lacking. God calls us to extend to one another the presence we have experienced in this most sacred food that we too become what we believe and who we consume. It is sacrifice and it is now food for our journey in this life. Without it, we starve spiritually for it centers us and joins us to the core without whom we have no life.
Jesus beautifully stated in the Gospel of John: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." (Jn 6: 53).
If you've ever joined for a Sunday Mass among a people and culture different from your own at first you're somewhat disoriented: the language is not your own, the people appear different from you, the music and the culture seems unfamiliar. But that momentary disorientation subsides quickly for the celebration becomes familiar as the word of God is read and the liturgy of the eucharist continues. One family in God, united together regardless of shallow differences, sharing the same common faith. We are one family and no matter where you go in the world to any Catholic Church, you are at home. The Eucharist is everything and unites differences as one in Christ Jesus whose blood was poured out for us and whose life is now consumed within us.
Let us rejoice and remind ourselves about this awesome gift given to us. The Bread of Life, Holy Communion, Eucharist, food for the journey, all is given to us in this central sacrament which calls us to be Church, his Mystical Body in the world.
How can we live out this mystery? The Eucharist creates unity and by its nature, calls us out to extend that same mystery of love and sacrifice. We receive and then we give to others by extending Jesus' own love in practical acts of charity and self-sacrifice for others. The Eucharist is not a private devotion meant for only one. It is life given for all . . .
It is EVERYTHING and we can share in its fullness until we see God in eternity, no longer hidden under signs. Such richness, such a treasure . . .
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Grant, O Lord, we pray,
that we may delight for all eternity
in that share in your divine life,
which is foreshadowed in the present age
by our reception of your precious Body and Blood.
Who live and reign for ever and ever.
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