The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ B

Readings: Exodus 24:3-8  Hebrews 9:11-15 

 Mark 14:12-16,22-26

The readings for the feast of Corpus Christi in the B cycle present the Eucharist as the new covenant sealed in the blood of Christ.  Appropriately, the refrain for the responsorial psalm is: “I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord” (Ps 116:13).  Because of the attention given to the blood of the covenant in all of the readings, this is an excellent time for the entire congregation to be given the opportunity to receive the cup as well as the Eucharistic bread.

The Old Testament reading from the Book of Exodus is the account of Moses’ sealing the covenant between the Lord and Israel on Mount Sinai.  This covenant ceremony demonstrates that Israel was a unique community in the ancient world in that the basis for its unity was not a common political overlord, but the free choice to serve the Lord by identifying with his gracious deliverance in the Exodus and by pledging to obey his covenant will.  Twice, when Moses reads aloud the stipulations of the covenant, the Israelites respond: “We will do everything that the Lord has told us.”

The blood of the young bulls which seals the covenant symbolizes the shared bond of life between the Lord and his people.  Like many ancient peoples, the Israelites understood blood to contain life (see Deut 12:23).  When Moses splashes half the blood on the altar and sprinkles the other half on the people, he is binding the Lord and his people in a common life; they have become one in a union of wills.  The Lord and Israel form a single family, a communion of life.

The Hebrews reading recounts Christ’s mediating through his own blood the new covenant promised by the prophet Jeremiah (see Jer 31:31-34; Heb 8:7-13).  In contrast to the rituals of the first covenant which were performed repeatedly using animal blood in an earthly sanctuary, Christ has entered the heavenly sanctuary once for all with his own blood.  His unblemished sacrifice brings an inner cleansing of the conscience which the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant could never accomplish.

Mark’s account of the Last Supper also stresses the sacrificial character of the Eucharist.  Jesus identifies the bread and wine of the Passover meal with his own imminent death and interprets them in light of both the covenant traditions in the Exodus 24 reading and the suffering servant songs of Isaiah which speak of the servant’s death bringing the forgiveness of the sins “of the many” (Isaiah 53:12).  According to Mark, Jesus has carefully arranged ahead of time for this last Passover meal with his disciples.  This gives the celebration the character of both remembering the past saving events of the Exodus and the blood of the Passover lamb which marked the homes of the Israelites and saved them from the angel of death, while at the same time looking forward to Jesus’ death and the final Messianic banquet.  Jesus concludes the meal by saying: “I solemnly assure you I will never again drink of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the reign of God.”

The central elements in the meal are, of course, Jesus’ actions and words in connection with the bread and wine used in the Passover celebration.  After taking bread, blessing and breaking it, he simply says: “Take, this is my body.”  The disciples are invited to share in Jesus’ sacrificial death which will be realized on the next day.  Jesus’ actions and words in connection with the cup allude directly to the traditions in both Exodus 24 and Isaiah 53:12. “He likewise took a cup,gave thanks and passed it to them,and they all drank from it. He said to them: ‘This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, to be poured out on behalf of many.’”

On this feast of Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ we remember the saving death of Jesus whose blood sealed a new covenant bond with God and brought forgiveness of sins.  What better way to celebrate than by having the whole assembly share in this saving blood by drinking from the Eucharistic cup?

Trinity Sunday B

Trinity Sunday B

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40  Romans 8:14-17 

 Matthew 28:16-20

            The readings for the feast of the Most Holy Trinity in the B cycle proclaim the triune God’s wonderful gifts to his people both in the Old Testament through the deliverance of his people from Egypt and the revelation of the Torah and in the New Testament through Christ who has made us heirs with him and sent us into the world to make disciples of all the nations and to baptize them “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit.”  Let us rejoice in our privilege as adopted children of God in Christ by singing the refrain of this Sunday’s responsorial psalm: “Happy the people the Lord has chosen to be his own” (Ps 34).

            In the Deuteronomy reading Moses, who is about to die without entering the promised land,  asks the Israelites who are to go into the land of Canaan to remember the Lord’s unique revelation and wonderful saving actions for them.  First of all he reminds them of the Lord’s giving the Torah on Mount Horeb/Sinai.  Moses asks the Israelites to recall if since the time God created humans upon earth, “did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?”  Secondly, he recollects the wonders the Lord worked in saving them from slavery in Egypt.  “Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with strong hand and outstretched arms, and by great terrors, all of which the Lord, your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?”  Moses concludes by stating two obligations that flow from the Lord’s saving actions: the Israelites must know and fix in their hearts that the Lord alone is God and they and their children must keep his commandments so that they may prosper in the land that the Lord is giving them.

            In the Epistle reading from the Letter to the Romans Paul is proclaiming the effects of Jesus’ death and resurrection on Christian believers.  The passage expresses Paul’s Trinitarian theology which is closely tied to what God the Father has done in saving humanity through the death and resurrection of Christ, the Son, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Without Christ’s victory over Sin and Death all humans were slaves to the flesh, the sinful lower instincts that turn us away from God.  But now with Christ’s saving death and resurrection, the Spirit of God has been poured out on all creation and has remade believers into adopted “sons of God.”  Christians now stand in a new relation to God, the Father.  They are not to be slaves who live in fear of God, but adopted children who dare to cry out to God “Abba, Father!” Paul concludes by reminding his Roman Christian readers that they have the gift of God’s Spirit which bears witness that in their present condition they are children and joint heirs with Christ to God’s kingdom provided they suffer with him until Christ’s triumphant return. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of god, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him, so that we may be glorified with him.”               

            The Gospel is the conclusion of Matthew which completes the main themes of the entire Gospel.  As the triumphant Son of Man (Daniel 7), the risen Jesus appears to the eleven disciples who have gone to Galilee, as Mary Magdalene and the other Mary had told them (Matt 28:9-10; cf. 26:32).   When the disciples see him in his glory, they worship, but also are filled with doubt.  Jesus then approaches them and assures them that he has triumphed over death and is now risen as the triumphant Son of Man as he had repeatedly announced in the earlier chapters of the Gospel (Matt 16:21-28; 17:22-23; 20:17-19; 24:1-51; 25:31-46; 26:63-64).  In Matthew the period between Jesus’ resurrection and his triumphant return as the Son of Man in judgment is a time for the gospel to be carried by the disciples to all the nations (24:14).  They are the emissaries of Jesus; to receive them is to receive Jesus and the Father who sent him (10:40-42; 18:1-5; 25:31-46).  Jesus has prepared them for this mission by his teachings in five long discourses throughout the Gospel (5:1-7:29; 10:1-11:1; 13:1-53; 18:1-35; 23:1-25:46).  Now he commissions them to make disciples of all nations, by “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” and by teaching them to observe all he has commanded them.  Jesus, who is Emmanuel, God with us (1:21-22), concludes by assuring them of his presence with them in this mission until his return in glory: “and behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” 

            As we carry on this great commission in the 21^st century, let us recommit ourselves to being willing to suffer with Christ for the sake of the gospel in the assurance that we have with us the abiding presence of the Triune God: Father, Son and Spirit, who will bring his saving work to completion.

Pentecost

Pentecost Sunday A B C

Readings: Acts 2:1-11 1 Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13   John 20:19-23

“Lord send out your spirit, and renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104).  In remembering the first Christian Pentecost, we fervently pray in the refrain of the responsorial psalm that God’s Holy Spirit renew the world and the church with the gifts of unity, peace, joy and forgiveness.

The Acts reading describes the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples at the Jewish pilgrimage feast of Pentecost (Shavuoth) in fulfillment of prophetic expectations of the final age when all the nations will know the God of Israel.  Isaiah 66 speaks of God’s coming in the following way: “For behold the Lord will come as a fire . . . with a flame of fire . . . I am coming to gather all the nations and tongues” (Is 66:15.18).  As Peter will affirm in his Pentecost sermon, the prophet Joel announced: “God says: ‘It will come to pass in the last days,/ that I will pour out a portion of my spirit upon all flesh’” (Acts 2:17).  Luke’s account of Pentecost has all of these elements.  The Spirit descends upon the gathered group of one hundred and twenty would-be witnesses to Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension with a noise “like a strong driving wind.”  Tongues “as of fire” part and rest on each of them, and the Holy Spirit enables them to speak in different languages to Jewish pilgrims from most of the known world.  In a symbolic reversal of the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel incident (Genesis11), the disciples speak in understandable languages of “the mighty works of God.”  As Peter will proclaim in his Pentecost sermon, Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension have begun the final age when all are called to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:14-41).

In the reading from 1 Corinthians, Paul insists that the Holy Spirit’s various gifts are meant for the common good of the community and for the unity of what were previously divided groups.  In Corinth some were using the possession of spectacular gifts like tongues as a basis for claiming superiority within the community.  Paul reminds the Corinthians that one Spirit gives various gifts--wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, working miracles, prophecy, tongues and interpreting tongues--for the building up of the whole community, and not for the exaltation of the individual (12:4-11).  He also uses the body of Christ metaphor to express the interdependence of all members--Jews or Greeks, slave or free--upon one another because they share a common baptism “into one body.”

The Gospel selection is John’s account of the gift of the Holy Spirit to the apostles on Easter night.  John places all the key saving events--the Resurrection, the ascent to the Father and the bestowal of the Spirit--on Easter (John 20:1-23).  When Jesus appears to the disciples on the evening of that first day of the week, he has already ascended to the Father as he had announced to Mary Magdalene (John 20:17).  He can now give them the gifts he had promised in the farewell discourse: peace, joy, and the Spirit/Paraclete (John 14-17).  Twice he greets the apostles with “Peace be with you” (cf. John 14:27).  When they see his hands and his side as proof that he was crucified and has now returned to the Father, the disciples experience the joy that Jesus had promised them (cf. 16:20-24).  Finally, Jesus sends them into the world as he was sent by the Father.  He breathes on them and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound.”  As God “breathed” life into Adam in Genesis, Jesus is recreating the community of disciples with the life of God’s forgiving love.

Easter VII B

7^th Sunday of Easter B

Readings:  Acts 1:15-17,20-26  1 John 4:11-16  John 17:11-19

The readings for this last Sunday of the Easter season prepare the disciples for the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost who will send them into a hostile world.  In the gospel selection, Jesus prays to his Father: “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to guard them from the evil one” (John 17:15).

The reading from Acts recounts the choice of Matthias to replace Judas as a member of the twelve who had been chosen by Jesus to renew the twelve tribes of Israel (see Luke 6:12-16; 22:24-30) and to witness to his resurrection (Luke 24:44-49).  Before the descent of the Spirit, this important symbolic group must be reconstituted.  Judas’ betrayal is a sobering reminder that the power of evil had penetrated into the very heart of Jesus’ apostolic band.  Peter reminds the group of approximately 120 who are gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem: “He (Judas) was one of our number and had been given a share in this ministry of ours” (Acts 1:17).  Luke understands Judas’ betrayal as due to the power of Satan (Luke 22:3) and as part of Jesus’ destiny in fulfillment of a prophecy spoken by David in Psalm 41:10: “Even my friend who had my trust/ and partook of my bread/ has raised his hand against me.”  At the last supper in Luke, Jesus had announced: “And yet behold, the hand of the one who is to betray me is with me on the table; for the Son of Man indeed goes as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed” (22:21-22).  Now Peter, continuing to follow the divine plan marked out in the psalms, quotes Psalm 109:8, “May another take his office,” and suggests that one of those who has been in the Jesus’ company from the baptism of John to the ascension “should be named as witness with us to his resurrection.”  Two men meet these qualifications: Joseph, called Barsabbas/Justus, and Matthias.  The community prayerfully leaves the final choice to God, and the lot falls to Matthias.

The second reading from 1 John continues last week’s epistle reading and addresses the most important question of how we can know if “we remain in” God.  This was vital concern for John’s church which had been rent by secession over how to understand Christ.  Some apparently thought the verbal confession that “Jesus is the Son of God” was enough.  John’s answer is at once simple and profound.  “Beloved, if God has loved us so (in Jesus’ death on the cross), we must have the same love for one another.”  In John’s theology God’s gift of the Spirit is the power to share in the very love of God.  Because we have not seen God, we can only demonstrate that God dwells in us by having love for one another.  This brings to perfection God’s love in us.  In 1 John’s unsurpassable words: “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”       

The Gospel is Jesus’ prayer for his disciples at the conclusion of his farewell discourse in John.  As he is about to depart to his Father, Jesus prays for two things: that the disciples be protected from “the evil one” and that they be consecrated in God’s word of love which is “truth.” Jesus’ language in this prayer is coded in key terms of Johannine theology.  He prays that the Father “protect them with your name which you have given me.”  God’s name, “I Am,” is repeatedly used by Jesus in John (see 6:22-66; 8:12-59; 10:1-21; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1-17; 18:5-6).  In John’s theology, this name reveals the unity of the Father and Son as the source of life and unity for all who come in faith to Jesus, the revelation of the Father’s love.  Jesus says to the Father, “I guarded them with your name which you gave me.”  The only one who was lost was Judas, “who was destined to be lost in fulfillment of Scripture.”  Now Jesus prays that the Father continue to protect the disciples “from the evil one” in a world opposed to the truth of God’s love.  As he sends his disciples into this hostile world, Jesus consecrates himself for their sakes by submitting to his Father’s plan by laying down his life.  As we await the descent of the Spirit on Pentecost and the renewal of its mission to the world, Jesus assures us of the Father’s loving protection and consecrates us to live the truth of God’s love in him. “Consecrate them by means of truth—‘Your word is truth.’ As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world; I consecrate myself for their sakes now,that they may be consecrated in truth.”

Ascension

The Ascension B

Readings: Acts 1:1-11    Ephesians 1:17-23   Mark 16:15-20

            The Feast of the Ascension celebrates both the resurrected Jesus’ triumph over the power of sin and evil by his ascension to the right hand of the Father and also the apostles’ mission, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to witness to the Christ’s victory throughout the world.  Let us rejoice in Jesus’ enthronement in the refrain of our responsorial psalm: “God mounts his throne to shouts of joy; a blare of trumpets for the Lord” (Ps 48).

            The account of Jesus’ ascension in the first reading comes from the introduction to Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles.  As in his Gospel, Luke addresses Acts to Theophilus (“lover of God”).  Our reading recapitulates the events of the Gospel with special emphasis on Jesus’ commissioning of the apostles to wait in Jerusalem to receive the power of the Holy Spirit which will send them as his witnesses to the whole world. Luke begins by summarizing what he narrated in his Gospel: Jesus’ actions and teachings until his ascension, his choice of the apostles, his suffering and death, his resurrection appearances over a forty day period in which he spoke of the kingdom of God and proved that he was alive, and his command not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await the Father’s promise of their baptism with the Holy Spirit.  He prefaces his second account of the ascension (see Luke 24:50-53) with a dialogue between the apostles and Jesus at their last meeting.  They ask, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” But Jesus says that it is not for them to know “the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority.”  Instead he promises: “. . . you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Then like Elijah in 2 Kings 2 and certain traditions associated with Moses, Jesus is “lifted up, and a cloud takes him from their sight.”  For Luke this is Jesus’ enthronement as the triumphant Messiah King and Son of Man at God’s right hand (see Daniel 7:13 and Luke 1:32; Acts 2:22-36; 7:56).  His exodus or departure has been a part of God’s plan from the beginning (see Luke 9:28-36; 9:51).  Like the prophets Moses and Elijah who appeared with him in glory at his transfiguration to talk of his exodus (9:28-36), Jesus must leave physically for the Holy Spirit to be poured out on his successors who will carry on his work (see Deuteronomy 34 and 2 Kings 2).  The “two men dressed in white garments” who stand beside the apostles as they witness the ascension may be Moses and Elijah (cf. Luke 9:28-36; 24:1-8).  They do not allow the apostles to continue to gawk at Jesus’ ascension, but rather assure them of Jesus’ return as the Messiah/Son of Man who will establish his kingdom after their work of witnessing to him throughout the earth.

            The Epistle reading is taken from the thanksgiving section of Ephesians in which the Pauline author prays that God through the resurrected and ascended Christ will give the Christian community, his body on earth, “a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him.”  In Christ’s resurrection from the dead, ascension, and enthronement at his right hand, God has defeated the powers of evil that formerly ruled the world--“every principality, authority, power, and dominion and every name that is named.”   God has put all things beneath Christ’s feet and given him “as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.”  Paul’s prayer is that the Christian community will have the eyes of their hearts enlightened by the risen and triumphant Christ so that they know “the hope that belongs to his (God the Father’s) call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe.”

            The Gospel reading is taken from the so-called longer ending of Mark (16:9-20).  Some manuscripts have Mark’s Gospel ending with 16:1-8, the story of the women’s discovery of the empty tomb and a young man clothed in a white robe telling them that Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified has been raised and is going to Galilee where his disciples are to see him.  This longer ending is not in the style of Mark, but it is part of the canonical Gospel and was apparently added to the text by the second century A.D.  It contains resurrection traditions found in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John. 

Like our first two readings it proclaims both the mission of the disciples to the world and Jesus’ ascension and enthronement at the right hand of God as a basis for hope and confidence for its success.  The resurrected Jesus first commissions his disciples to go into the whole world, proclaim the gospel to every creature, and baptize believers.  He goes on to assure them of the power to work signs in his name: driving out demons, speaking new languages, healing the sick, even being protected from serpents and deadly things. Jesus is then taken up into heaven and takes his seat at the right hand of God.  Assured of his protection, his disciples go forth and preach everywhere, while the Lord works through them, confirming the signs he had promised.