The Body and Blood of Christ

The altar stone where the miracle of the bleeding host took place
in my Grandfather's home town of Bolsena

Corpus Christi: Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ A

Readings: Deuteronomy 8:2‑3,14‑16  

1 Corinthians 10:16‑17  John  6:51‑58  

   

The readings for the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ present three aspects of the mystery of the Eucharist: (1) as a remembrance of the Lord's past care for his people, (2) as a union with Christ and one another, and  (3) as an anticipation of our eternal life through Christ in God.   In gratitude for the gift of the Eucharist, let us sing the refrain of the responsorial psalm: "Praise the Lord, Jerusalem" (Ps 147).

 In order to understand Moses' words to the Israelites in the reading from Deuteronomy, we need to remember the genre and setting of the book.  Deuteronomy is composed as Moses' farewell to the people after their journey of forty years from Sinai to the plains of Moab, just across the Jordan from the promised land of Canaan.  Moses is about to die; he will not be able to enter the land with the people, and so in his farewell he prepares them for the dangers they will face in the land of milk and honey. 

    In this section Moses reminds the Israelites that the Lord is about to bring them into “a good country . . . a land where (they) can eat bread without stint and where (they) will lack nothing .  . .”  (Deut 8:7‑9).  The danger of this prosperity will be that they may forget the Lord who has sustained them for the difficult forty years of wandering in the desert with the gift of “manna, a food unknown to (them) and (their) fathers.”  Each will be tempted to think that “It is my own power and the strength of my own hand that has obtained for me this wealth” (Deut 8:17).  The antidote to forgetfulness is remembrance of the lessons of the wilderness, especially the manna which was given “in order to show . . . that not by bread alone does man live, but by every word (of command) that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.”  

           In the second reading Paul is warning the Corinthians that they are not free to participate in the banquets honoring pagan deities, even though they may know that these idols are nothing.  Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians that in their Eucharistic banquets "the cup of blessing" they drink is "a sharing in the blood of Christ" and the bread they break is "a sharing in the body of Christ."  Through this sharing in Christ's covenant of sacrificial love they are united to one another.  "Because the loaf of bread is one, we, many though we are, are one body for we all partake of the one loaf."  Paul then goes on to warn the Corinthians that those who partake in the pagan banquets are united to "demons" (see Deut 32:17). "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons.  You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons" (1 Cor 10:21).

          The Gospel reading is part of John's bread of life discourse given by Jesus after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes (John 6).  One of John's themes in this discourse is a contrast between the manna that God sent down to the Jewish ancestors in the desert (John 6:30‑33,51‑58) and Jesus who proclaims “I am the living bread come down from heaven.”  The difference between the manna and Jesus is that between temporary and lasting sustenance.  “Unlike your ancestors who ate and died nonetheless, the one who feeds on this bread shall live  forever” (John 6:58). 

          In John's theology Jesus who gives his “flesh for the life of the world” is the only link to the Father.  All of the images of Jesus in John express this same basic idea.  He is “the Lamb of  God who takes away the sins of the world” (1:29), the living  temple (2:19‑21), the Son sent to be lifted up for the world's salvation (3:14‑17), the living water (4:14), the light of the world (8:12), the “sheep gate” and “the good shepherd” (10:7,14),  the “resurrection and the life” (11:25), “the way and the truth  and the life” (14:6), and “the true vine” (15:1).  The particular focus of the image of Jesus as “the living bread” is that the Eucharistic sharing in Jesus' life‑giving death brings a unity with Jesus and the Father which stretches into all eternity. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood true drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feed on me will have life because of me.”