THE EUCHARIST, AN EXTRAORDINARY MEAL.

June 6, 2021
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ - B.

Readings: Ex 24:3-8; Ps 116:12-13, 15-16, 17-18; Heb 9:11-15; Mk 14:12-16, 22-26.

A French proverb says, “A good meal ought to begin with hunger.” And a Guinean proverb adds, “If your husband has many wives, the only sure way for him into your bedroom is through a delicious meal.”

For a Christian, the Eucharist we celebrate every day, and especially on Sunday is the most delicious meal. It is the memorial of the passion of Christ. But one could be tempted to ask, how is the Eucharistic celebration the memorial of the Easter mystery that started on Holy Thursday, was amplified on Good Friday, and finds its zenith on the day of the Resurrection? Furthermore, knowing that the Eucharist is the consecration of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  Precisely, because the Eucharist is bread to become Body and wine to become Blood that it takes us back to the altar where the true and carnal body and blood were offered in sacrifice for human redemption, the Altar of the Cross.

On the night before he suffered and died, while seated with his chosen ones, the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, gave them an extraordinary meal. When they had feasted, faithful to the Law's command, he gave them a far more precious and providential food, himself in his own hand, his Body and his Blood as bread and wine for their journey in faith. The Word made flesh is the true bread from heaven. From the wine, his blood is taken, though our senses cannot see. It is faith alone that proves the effectiveness of that great mystery. With faith, we see in the Holy Eucharist an admirable exchange where God gives himself to us. God makes himself bread and wine to stay in us and no longer depart from us. The Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament of God's compassion, the food given to sustain those who fear and fall on the roads of this life. It is a Sacrament of God's presence and peace to the Church. In it and through it, we adore Christ, the Son of God as our bread of life.

The Church speaks of the real presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. It is not a symbol of his presence but his truly given Body and Blood. We read from the Catechism, “The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” CCC. 1374.

While celebrating the Corpus Christi, the liturgy of the word raises different dimensions of the Holy Communion: Eucharist as Sacrament of the covenant the Lord made with his people. Eucharist as the cup of Salvation that cleanses our consciences. And Eucharist as the truly offered Body and Blood of Christ, the Lamb of the New Passover. In the first reading, we are reminded of the covenant Moses sealed between God and his people. This was made through the blood of spotless bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. Moses sprinkled the blood on the people and each of them was marked as partakers of the covenant. The Letter to the Hebrews, in the second reading, tells us that a new covenant has been sealed between God and us, and that was not through the offering of animals’ blood but a more precious and spotless blood, the Blood of the Son of God, consequently the Blood of God himself. The Blood of Christ, says the author of the Letter, will purify our conscience. He is the “high priest of the good things that have come to be, passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle…” Christ is the High Priest of an irremovable covenant, a covenant far superior of the one sealed in the Old Testament with Moses. In Christ Jesus, the believers have become the "new Israel", people saved from sin and called to raise day after day the Cup of Salvation, calling upon the name of the Lord.

Most beautiful and more explicit about the Eucharist is what Jesus himself says in the Gospel. The narrative of the institution of the Holy Eucharist tells us that this is not an invention of the Church, and even more, that it is not mere mimesis. What we celebrate at every Mass is a renewal of what the Lord did, the night before his passion. The Evangelist Mark reports, “As they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." And he took a chalice, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many."” We find here all the words repeated by the Priest at the consecration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. The Holy Eucharist is the truly-given body and blood of Christ. It was given by the Lord to seal a covenant between us and his Father. Jesus is in that sense, the spotless blood that reconciles the sinful humanity to God. And so, to truly understand what took place at the foot of Mount Sinai with Moses and the people of Israel, one needs to get a clear understanding of the Eucharist as Sacrament of the New and Everlasting Covenant.

Our approach to the Holy Eucharist should be reevaluated and corrected. In coming to Communion, we are not just coming to take a piece of dry bread and drink some drops of wine. We are partaking in Christ's Body and drinking at the chalice of his Blood. This implies a great understanding of what we do and what could be the effects of this Sacrament on us.

It is regrettable that many Christians do not truly and rightly prepare themselves before receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. Most of the time, we take it unworthily and in dirty hands and dirty bodies. Through partaking in the Sacrament of the Holy Covenant, one either frees himself of sin or condemns himself to greater sin. St. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, will say, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor 11:27-29).

We might be tempted to ask, what are the condemnations the Apostle speaks about. Paul himself answers: where does it come that we are always sick, that many among us are dying, that our world goes from crisis to crisis, and our societies are so troubled? Simply because we lack faith in what we receive and receive it unworthily. A little discernment and change in our approach to the Holy Eucharist will bring a great and considerable change in our personal life, in the life of our families, in the life of the Church, and certainly in that of the world. For, the Eucharist, that is what the Church holds firmly, "is the source and summit of the Christian life" (CCC 1324). It can either heal us or kill us. It all depends on how we take it. The Eucharist is a kind of double-sharp knife: Sacrament of Salvation or Sacrament of judgment and condemnation. It is in that sense an extraordinary meal.