We, Though Many, Are One

Dali's Sacrament of the Last Supper

There have been many impressive meals in the course of human history. Some intimate, some grand.There was the first supper, so the Book of Genesis says, where the entre was forbidden fruit. There are state banquets, like the one this month at Buckingham Palace. There’s the Passover, the Seder, in remembrance of the Jews’ deliverance from their oppressors in ancient Egypt. The meal table is often the center of family life.

And in our global Christian family, the altar or table of the Lord is the center of our faith community.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, in Latin "Corpus Christi," and in Greek "eucharistia" or thanksgiving. We gather to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

St. Paul, in his letter to the Christian community at Corinth in Greece, highlights the sacredness of the Lord’s Supper. This sacrificial meal reenacts the life-giving death/resurrection of Jesus, the new and everlasting covenant God made with us.

This Lord’s Supper soon developed into the structure we know today: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Herein, we worship and praise God for who he is and what he has done for us.

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus satisfies the hungry crowd in the so-called miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish. People have so many hungers: some simply for bread; others for justice and freedom and peace. Jesus here satisfies the crowd’s physical hunger, and this wonder prefigures the liturgy of the Eucharist where the bread and wine become the body and blood of the risen Christ, satisfying our spiritual hunger.

At the last supper, think of three phrases Jesus said: This is my body…this is my blood. The bread and wine become sacramentally the Living Christ, his real presence among us.

The second phrase: Do this in remembrance of me. The same victim who died once for us centuries ago returns to this sacrificial meal sacramentally today and every day.

The third phrase: Take and eat…take and drink. Jesus invites us to become one with himself in communion.

And what is the purpose? Paul wrote: because the bread is one, we, though many, are one body. This not only forms us into a more vibrant community but also empowers us to reach out compassionately to one another. Where Jesus left off his earthly ministry, He asks us to continue.

Yes, the Eucharist unites us as the mystical body of Christ and empowers us to become "the hands and feet and voice" of Christ in our homes and workplaces and communities, until he comes again in glory at the end time to transform this universe of ours into a new heaven and a new earth.