Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ – Year B

Every Christian is a living Eucharist sent into the world

“This is my body; this is my blood”
Mark 14:12-16,22-26

Sixty days after Easter, on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as the feast of Corpus Christi. It is one of the three most solemn Thursdays of the liturgical year: Holy Thursday, Ascension Thursday, and Corpus Christi Thursday. For pastoral reasons, in many countries, this feast is moved to the Sunday following Trinity Sunday. Although we have already concluded the Easter season, this chronological reference establishes a link between this feast and Easter, as well as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ almost seems like a repetition of Holy Thursday. And in fact, in a certain way, it is. On Holy Thursday, the Church could not fully express its joy and gratitude for the supreme gift of the Eucharist, given the sorrowful context of the Passion. Today is a day consecrated to praise, thanksgiving, contemplation, and reflection on this great gift that Jesus left to his Church.

Sacrifices and blood!

The first thing that catches our attention when listening to the biblical texts proposed by the Church today are the numerous references to SACRIFICES and BLOOD present in the four readings (including the psalm). The connection of these realities with the Eucharist is not familiar to us and can even clash with our sensibilities. This conception of the relationship with God is now very distant from our culture. The calls of the Prophets have advanced a purification of this sacrificial religiosity. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6). Jesus also took up this prophetic denunciation.

In the New Testament, we often find the presentation of Jesus’ death as the perfect sacrifice that redeemed humanity (see Hebrews 9:11-15, second reading). These were the most suitable biblical categories to proclaim the absolute uniqueness of Jesus’ death. The problem arises when this “sacrifice” of Jesus is seen as a requirement of divine justice. Such an affirmation taken literally would be shocking and would distort the image of God, presenting Him as a judge who demands a balance between offense and reparation. Hardly a God the Father! Unfortunately, this mentality struggles to disappear.

The “sacrifice” of the Eucharist involves not only Christ but each one of us. That bread in Jesus’ hands is not only his body, his life, but also ours. The Eucharist is not a ritual but a way of life. When Jesus says, “Do this in memory of me,” he is not only referring to the repetition of a rite but to the emulation of his gesture. You are that bread in his hands; it is your existence that he blesses; it is your life that he breaks and offers to all those you are called to nourish and love. Every Christian is a living Eucharist sent into the world. Every gesture and moment of our lives should echo: “My life has been given to you.” Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we should return home “by another road,” like the Magi.

The new and eternal Covenant

The second word that emerges from the readings is COVENANT: “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words!” (Exodus 24:3-8, first reading); “He [Christ] is the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 9:11-15, second reading); “his is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many.” (gospel). The covenant is a central theme in Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, where the Hebrew term “berît” appears 287 times.

The idea of covenant is more familiar to us. The most common is the marital covenant. The Eucharist is the celebration of God’s covenant with humanity. It is the marriage of Christ with his Church. The blood of sacrifices sealed the first covenant at Mount Sinai, with the mediation of Moses. The new and eternal covenant is sealed by the blood of Christ on the cross.

Today, we unfortunately observe that the Eucharist, the seal of the Covenant, is “in crisis” in the West. The majority of so-called faithful ignore it, and our Eucharistic communities often appear cold, demotivated, and indifferent. There is talk of a “faded Mass”. How far we are from the experience of the martyrs of Abitina (Tunisia, 304 AD) who, questioned about why they had disobeyed the emperor’s order prohibiting Christian gatherings, responded: “Without the Eucharist, we cannot live”! If we celebrate the Eucharist with full awareness, we cannot remain indifferent to such love. We will spontaneously exclaim like St. Paul: “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20).

The Eucharist, a growing gift

The Eucharist is a growing gift, an inheritance that continues to generate new riches, the tree of life from paradise that, in its exuberant fertility, produces fruits in every time and season, in response to the specific needs of each era. What are the needs of our time? I think especially of four.

The Bread of simplicity. Our world abounds with the offer of surrogate bread that seems “good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6), but that does not satisfy. The Lord asks us: “Why spend money on what is not bread, your labor on what does not satisfy?”. The Eucharistic Bread, the living and true Bread, the only necessary Bread, is a call to essentiality, simplicity, and sobriety in our lifestyle.

The Bread of intimacy. In a globalised world, where differences feel threatened, in a massifying society, where anonymity predominates, in a standardised culture, where incommunicability grows, the Eucharist is the Bread of intimacy, familiarity, bonds of friendship, welcome, and fraternal communication. Participating in the Eucharistic table, we are introduced into the intimacy of the Trinity, we truly feel like loved, understood, consoled, encouraged people, and we are reconciled with our life, our history, the world, and humanity.

The Bread of solidarity. Our “daily bread” today, i.e., the resources of the earth, creates divisions and marginalisation, inequalities, and injustice. Our “daily bread” today generates wars and destruction, selfishness, and indifference. Our “daily bread” today brings death, drips with the blood of the poor, reeks of the rot of a trampled and exploited nature. The “daily bread” that we together ask the Father is, instead, the bread of solidarity that brings life and dignity for all. It is the bread of peace and justice that arouses hope everywhere. The Eucharistic Bread calls to mind the bread of solidarity, because, as the Didache (1st-2nd century, a kind of catechism of the first Christians) says: “If we share among ourselves the heavenly bread, how can we not share the earthly bread?”.

The Bread of the future. In today’s world, shaken by wars and injustices, divided into opposing blocs, threatened by the climate crisis and the nightmare of nuclear war, pessimism about the future is growing, and hope in a better world is decreasing. Every day we ask the Father: “Give us today our daily bread”. St. Jerome maintained, however, that it should be translated: “Give us today the bread of tomorrow,” that is, the bread of the future. The Eucharist is the Bread of the future, the bread of the Kingdom of God. Jesus says in today’s gospel: “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” The Eucharist is the new wine of the joy of the Kingdom, of the “new heavens and new earth,” the object of our hope!

Spiritual exercise for the week

Before receiving communion, look with wonder and amazement at the Bread placed on your hand and ask yourself, as the Israelites did with the gift of manna: Man hu? What is it? And the Lord will answer you: It is my body!

Fr. Manuel João Pereira Correia, mccj
Verona, June 2024