HOMILY OF SOLEMNITY OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST — YEAR A
HOMILY THEME: HOLY EUCHARIST, THE FOOD THAT SUSTAINS!
BY: Fr. Isaac Awe
Deut. 8:2-3, 14-16/ 1 Cor. 10:16-17/ John 6:51-58
Two Sundays ago, we celebrated the decent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles (Followers of Christ) and that kicked start the institution of the Church. Also, for the actualization of the mission of the Church, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, signifying the unity of the Church as seen in Acts 4:32 and today we are celebrating the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ( Bread and Wine for the Journey).
The feast of corpus Christi or the Body of Christ is a commemoration or calling to mind of that extraordinary act of love for us which our divine lord performed on the night He died. Through his divine power He left to His church, to His followers, the power to re-represent again and again the sacrifice of His human nature which He was about to offer to the Father next day on the cross for the salvation and elevation of Mankind.
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In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in a thanksgiving sacrifice as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the Creator as the giver and sustainer of life. Melchizedek, who was both a priest and king (Genesis 14:18; Hebrews 7:1-4), offered a sacrifice of bread and wine. His offering prefigured the offering made by Jesus, our high priest and king (Hebrews 7:26; 9:11; 10:12). The remembrance of the manna in the wilderness recalled to the people of Israel that they live – not by earthly bread alone – but by the bread of the Word of God (Deuteronomy 8:3). At the last supper when Jesus blessed the cup of wine, he gave it to his disciples saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). Jesus was pointing to the sacrifice he was about to make on the cross, when he would shed his blood for us – thus pouring himself out and giving himself to us – as an atoning sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the world. His death on the cross fulfilled the sacrifice of the paschal (Passover) lamb whose blood spared the Israelites from death in Egypt.
The receiving of Holy Communion is an essential sequence to the offering of Christ in the sacrifice of the Mass. He is present in our altars to re-offer His sacrifice of Calvary; His coming as the added purpose of nourishing us spiritually. While the sacrifice of the Mass honors God of itself, our participation puts us in intimate union with God for we take within us Christ who is God. This we become the abode of the divine and the recipients of God’s most abundant Grace’s. This is what Holy Communion means, union with the holy of holies, intimate union with God.
In the four verses read to us today in the book of Deuteronomy, the reference is to the “Manna” the food God gave to His Chosen people during their forty years of wandering in the desert. This reference is made today because the Manna has always been looked on as a foreshadowing of the Eucharist, the real heavenly food.
Why did Jesus offer himself as “food and drink”? It is to fulfill the assertion made in Matthew 28:20 which opine that, “I am with you till the end of time”. Even though the Jews were scandalized and the disciples were divided when Jesus said “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” What a hard saying, unless you understand who Jesus is and why he calls himself the bread of life. The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves (John 6:3-13), when Jesus said the blessing, broke and distributed the loaves through his disciples to feed the multitude, is a sign that prefigured the superabundance of the unique bread of the Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper. The Gospel of John has no account of the Last Supper meal (just the foot washing ceremony and Jesus’ farewell discourse). Instead, John quotes extensively from Jesus’ teaching on the bread of life.
However, to reach our inheritance we have to journey through the desert of life, a journey during which we need above all a spiritual nourishment to sustain us and strengthen us to persevere amidst the many difficulties and hindrances our human nature and this earthly world put in our way. Christ, because He’s God, because He foresaw our weakness and needs, and because “He loved us to the end,” found a way of remaining with us to sustain us on our journey. He left us Himself under the form of food, bread and wine, to nourish us and to help us to grow daily stronger in our spiritual, supernatural life and this be able to reach the eternal home He has prepared for us. When the Lord Jesus commands his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he invites us to take his life into the very center of our being. Do we hunger for the bread of life?
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, you nourish and sustain us with your very own presence and life-giving word. You are the bread of life – the heavenly food that sustains us now and that produces everlasting life within us. May we always hunger for you and be satisfied in you alone. Amen
Happy Corpus Christi Sunday!
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