By Fr. Marcel Uzoigwe, CSSp. (Deut. 8:2-3,14-16, Ps.147:12-20, 1Cor. 10:16-17 & Jn.6:51-58)
Dear friends in Christ,
Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Corpus Christi (Body and Blood of Christ) which is at the very center of Catholic spirituality. Ever since the institution of the Eucharist in the Upper Room by Jesus with the mandate “Do this in memory of me”, (Luke 22:19, 1Cor.11:24,25), the Church has in obedience gathered regularly in the name of Jesus to do and say what the Lord Jesus did and commanded at that last supper. By this establishment, Jesus really wants us to keep celebrating and living out his life and message as Eucharistic people and also to draw life from his Body and Blood which sustains us in our pilgrimage to eternal life.
The three readings of today deal with the subject of Jesus as the Bread of Life from different perspectives. In the first reading, Moses calls on the Israelites to remain faithful to God who led them through the desert for forty year, feeding them with manna, the bread of heaven. He described this bread as something uncommon and unknown to their fathers; something that God alone bestows on his people out of love, to strengthen them on their difficult journey through the desert. Moses pointed out that the event of feeding the Israelites with the manna coupled with the circumstances of their painful journey obliges them to realize that there is more to life than bread and butter. They are called to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. In other words, they are called to obedience of faith – living by God’s commandments and standard so as to remain the people of God, pleasing to Him. Their unity as a people derives not only from their common ancestry but also from their faithfulness to God who has claimed them as His own and saddled Moses with the task of leading them out of slavery to the freedom that befits the children of God.
Paul takes up this theme with the early Corinthian Christians who were besieged with various pastoral problems. He cautioned them on the dangers of neither according the Body and Blood of Christ the dignity it commands nor living according to its demands. Sharing the one body required them to be united in love for one another, working for the good of all rather than seeking individual interests in ways that harm the community of believers. Being a Jew did not blind St. Paul from realizing Jesus as the new source of unity among the believers rather than ancestral descent. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: The old has gone, the new is here (2 Cor. 5:17). He or she is a member of the new community of the people of God.
Partaking of the body of Christ implies being one with Jesus. The consequence of this event is enumerated in the earlier verses (verses 1-15) of the 1Corinthians 10 out of which today’s reading consists of only versus 16 and 17. St. Paul connects there the dangers of unworthy participation in the Eucharist with the Israelites at the time of Moses who ate the manna in an unworthy manner, and consequently died in the desert. They were, so to say, the rotten part of the body, and therefore unworthy to remain united with the rest. Paul warns us that sin makes us unworthy and has an unpleasant effect when we approach the Eucharist. We need to be prepared because we are dealing with God who is holy and almighty.
The question of true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is the subject of the Gospel reading. In spite of Jesus’ declaration that the bread and wine are his true body and blood, this discussion has continued until this day. Down through the ages many heretics doubt and deny the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. For some it is impossible to be true while for others, Jesus’ real presence is limited within the time of the Eucharistic celebration but not after the celebration.
The importance of this teaching of Jesus led Pope Urban IV to establish Corpus Christi as a Feast for the universal Church in 1264 and Pope Clement V made it an obligatory feast for the universal Church at the Council of Vienna in 1311. The Church takes this teaching serious because it was Jesus who made this statement “I am the bread of life”. He didn’t stop there, he went on to say that, this bread is my flesh. So the bread you see is God whole and entire, body and blood, soul and divinity. The bread is not a pointer, but Jesus himself who continues to offer himself to us. Again, during the Last Supper, “while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”(Matthew 26: 26-28). Searching for the very words of Jesus in the scriptures (ipsissima verba), scholars found that these were the actual words of Jesus himself. He said, “this is my body, this is my blood” and not “this represents my body, this represent my blood”. Corpus Christi Feast was, therefore, established in order to re-assure the Christian Faithful of Christ’s ever abiding real presence in the Eucharist as opposed to the heretical doubt and denial of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
In the light of our great celebration today, the big question that confronts us is, to what extent do we really believe in the Eucharistic Jesus and His ever abiding real presence, and how has the celebration of the Eucharist positively transformed us as individuals and united us as a community of faith where the life of Jesus is replicated in our dealings with one another? The early Church gives us an example of living as a community of faith. Acts 4:32 says, “all the believers were one in heart and mind.” And when problems started arising, the apostles chose men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom to handle the situation and maintain unity among the brethren (Acts 6:1-3).
The feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus (Corpus Christi) reminds us of who we are: the people of God on a journey to our eternal home in heaven. While here on earth, we are united with God, protected and strengthened by the body and blood of Christ we celebrate. It is our responsibility to remain united with Him, helping one another with the realization that we are members of the one body, and the journey could sometimes be more difficult for one or more of our members. In this regard, let us heed to the admonition of St. Paul in Romans 15: 1-3, “we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me’”.