The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Next Saturday we may have a Triple Crown winner in horse racing. All eyes will be on Justify at the Belmont stakes.

Horses remind me of a story about a 19th century traveling preacher who trained his horse to go at full gallop when he said "thank God" and to stop when he said "amen."

The preacher would mount the horse and say "thank God" and off the horse went at full gallop. When he wanted to stop, he would say "amen."

One day the horse was going at full gallop toward the edge of a cliff. The preacher panicked and said "whoa! whoa!" Then he remembered and said "amen" and the horse stopped right at the edge of the cliff. The preacher was so relieved that he looked up to heaven and said "thank God!" The preacher was never heard from again. So much for horse stories.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Eucharist, a Greek word meaning “thanksgiving”: thanksgiving to God for the gift of salvation, life in God and with God forever.

Now there have been many impressive meals in the course of human history. From the very simple to the highly elaborate.

There was that first meal, so the Book of Genesis says, where the entree was forbidden fruit. That meal turned into a catastrophe.

And there are those endless state banquets where heads of state toast each other over rack of lamb and cherries jubilee.

And then there’s the Passover, the Seder service, a remembrance of the deliverance of the Hebrews from their oppressors in ancient Egypt.

The meal table often is the center of family life. We gather at the family table in love and friendship and conversation. Memorable things often take place around meal tables. Families celebrate important transitions in life—birthdays, marriages, graduations and retirements—and great holiday feasts like Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter. The occasions are as numerous as our imaginations will allow.

Sometimes families even argue at meal tables. But an argument can be a positive sign that we care enough to disagree. It's ok to agree to disagree. And even if we argue around a table now and then, we share plenty of memorable things around the table.

Yes, the meal table is indeed for many the center of family life.

And in our global Catholic family the altar or table of the Lord is the center of our Catholic faith community. Think about that. We gather around the table of the Lord to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, to re-enact the Easter mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus Christ so that we can re-experience our salvation and nurture the life of God within us.

The word of God takes us back in our imaginations to the exodus or liberation of the Hebrews from their oppressors in Egypt.

And then in the wilderness, Moses experiences God in the imagery of thunder and lightning and mediates a covenant in a so-called “blood” ritual which symbolizes that God and the Hebrews share the same divine life. Blood symbolizes life and, in this instance, God’s life is ours. We too carry within our fragile selves God’s life. But we may ask how faithful are we: in our relationships to God and one another and in our responsibilities?

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews compares the animal sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem to the bodily sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Jesus through his horrific death and glorious resurrection opened up to us life beyond this earthly life. But we may ask: do we live as adopted sons and daughters of God our Father?

In the Gospel according to Mark, the author recalls the last supper or Passover of Jesus in the upper room in Jerusalem. Now when Jesus sat down to that supper, he faced three challenges:

First: He had to leave us and yet He wanted to stay with us. How did he solve this challenge? Listen to His words: This is my body; this is my blood. The bread and wine look and feel and taste like bread and wine but they are not. The bread and wine become sacramentally the Living Christ, his real presence among us until He comes again with power and great glory at the end-time.

The second challenge: Jesus wanted to die for each one of us and yet He could die only once as a human being. How did he solve this challenge? Listen to His words: Do this in remembrance of me. The same victim who died once for us outside the walls of Jerusalem centuries ago returns to this sacrificial meal today and every day.

The third challenge: Jesus wanted to be one with us and yet this was impossible this side of heaven. How did solve this challenge? Listen to His words: Take and eat; take and drink. Jesus invites us to become one with himself in communion.

Yes, Jesus had to leave us and yet He stays with us: the bread and wine become sacramentally the living Christ.

Jesus could die but once as a human being. And so the Victim (the lamb, the sacrifice) returns to us sacramentally today and every day in this sacrificial meal.

He wanted to be one with us and yet He couldn’t this side of heaven; so He gave us communion.

But what is the purpose of the bread we eat? The blood we drink? The purpose of the Eucharist is to form us into missionary disciples of Jesus. Yes, the Eucharist is the real presence of the living Christ, sacramentally and mystically. But the Eucharist is an empty gesture unless we go out from the table of the Lord to feed the hungry, to satisfy not only their spiritual hunger but their many other hungers. So many people today simply hunger for bread; others for justice and human rights and freedoms we take for granted; and still others hunger for peace and understanding.

We are called to go from church intothe community, to wash the feet of our brothers and sisters, so to speak. To paraphrase an old hymn: Christ has no hands but our hands to do His work today; He has no feet but our feet to lead human beings to Him who is our way, our truth and our life; He has no voice but our voice to tell us why He died (so that God might abide in us and we in God); He has no help but our help to lead human beings to their true purpose in life: a life in and with God forever.

Christ, the master, calls us to be God-centered, Other-centered people.

And so we pray that God may re-energize all of us through this Eucharist—the Body and Blood of Christ--to be ever more visibly the “hands and feet and ears and voice” of Jesus in our everyday lives, missionary disciples of Jesus, “bread” to one another.