Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi is the feast that helps us remember the gift of the Eucharist. It is a day to focus on Jesus as the bread of life the source and the summit of everything we are. The readings remind us that God provides what we need, not only for our bodies but also for our souls. This celebration points us back to the desert, where God gave manna to His people. It shows us that we depend on Him for life itself. The Eucharist better known as the Blessed Sacrament is the new manna, given through Jesus, who offers Himself so that we may live forever with him. In the first reading Moses is addressing the Israelites at the end of their long sojourn in the wilderness: it was a time of testing, of humble and total reliance on God as they were kept alive by the manna from heaven. In the second reading we are told that Paul was very fond of his little community in the cosmopolitan Greek city and very concerned about the dissensions that racked that mixed bag of people. He appeals to the focus of their Christian life: though they were many they were one in the bread that they shared.
In the Gospel John picks up the theme of manna from heaven and contrasts the bread the Jews ate in the desert with the new bread of life given by Jesus. Now the Word of God has become flesh, and the bread of heaven is Jesus himself. To eat this bread is to have a share in the life of God himself. In celebrating the Eucharist, we celebrate the memory of Jesus passion, death and resurrection. We recall the radical values that put Jesus in opposition to so many of his own people: his talk about God and the kingdom; his insistence on forgiveness; his opposition to the religious sham of his day; his commitment to peace; his willingness to die to overcome sin. In receiving the body and blood of Christ we become his body Called to bring the values of Jesus into the world where we are. The real presence of Christ is also in the community when it gathers in his name to feast on the Word of Scripture, to recall what Jesus said and did at the Last Supper, when it shares the food of the Eucharist together, when it goes out and continues to break and pour out that food in acts of loving kindness, in soothing and nourishing words which brings others to life. The celebration of Corpus Christi reminds us that the great gift of the Eucharist is a both a gift and a mystery. Jesus is present with us in a way that is really beyond our understanding. We take Him into ourselves when we receive communion. We are united to his sacrifice on the Cross for all of us when we pray the Mass in its fullness and eat the Bread of Life.
We come before His Presence whenever we are in Church where the Eucharist is in a tabernacle or exposed on the Altar. Jesus is present with the angels and saints in heaven now. He is present in the Blessed Sacrament, and he is with us in all the ups and downs that are part of our daily lives. The the Blessed Sacrament reminds us that Christ continues to feed, strengthen, forgive, and unite us as God’s people. We are called again to gratitude, reverence, and renewed commitment as we endeavor to live what we profess at the altar. So today we celebrate that our God has come to us and does not leave us, and in the words of a great eucharistic hymn Come, adore this wondrous presence, bow to Christ, the source of grace.
Fullerton T 