19 June 2022 – Corpus Christi – The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Corpus Christi, Year C
1st Reading: Genesis 14:18-20
Melchizedek brought bread and wine and pronounced a blessing
Melchizedek king of Salem brought bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High. He pronounced this blessing:
‘Blessed be Abraham by God Most High,
creator of heaven and earth,
and blessed be God Most High
for handing over your enemies to you.’
And Abraham gave him a tithe of everything.
Responsorial: Psalm 109:1-4
R./: You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek
The Lord’s revelation to my Master:
‘Sit on my right:
I will put your foes beneath your feet.’ (R./)
The Lord will send from Zion
your sceptre of power:
rule in the midst of all your foes. (R./)
A prince from the day of your birth
on the holy mountains;
from the womb before the daybreak
I begot you. (R./)
The Lord has sworn an oath he will not change.
‘You are a priest for ever,
a priest like Melchizedek of old.’
You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek. (R./)
2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
A reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Corinthians
Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the death of the Lord.
This is what I received from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you: that on the same night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me.’
In the same way he took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.’
Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death.
Gospel: Luke 9:11-17
They all ate and were filled
Jesus made the crowds welcome and talked to them about the kingdom of God; and he cured those who were in need of healing. It was late afternoon when the Twelve came to him and said, ‘Send the people away, and they can go to the villages and farms round about to find lodging and food; for we are in a lonely place here.’
He replied, ‘Give them something to eat yourselves.’ But they said, ‘We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we are to go ourselves and buy food for all these people.’ For there were about five thousand men. But he said to his disciples, ‘Get them to sit down in parties of about fifty.’
They did so and made them all sit down. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven, and said the blessing over them; then he broke them and handed them to his disciples to distribute among the crowd. They all ate as much as they wanted, and when the scraps remaining were collected they filled twelve baskets.
The table of fellowship
Sitting together for a meal can generate a special feeling of togetherness. Each of us will have our own memories of table companionship or fellowship. Many of these will be happy experiences of celebration and laughter, of love received and shared. Some memories of table fellowship may be sad, times when we were more aware of one who was absent than of those who were present. Jesus shared table many times with his disciples. It is likely that, when sharing food with his disciples, he also shared with them his vision of God’s kingdom . At table, the disciples imbibed something of Jesus’ mind and heart and spirit. Of all the meals he shared with them, the meal that stayed in their memory more than any other was their last meal together, what came to be known as the last supper. Today’s gospel gives us Mark’s account, his word-picture, of that last supper.
This last meal Jesus shared with his disciples stood out in their memory, capturing the imagination of generations of disciples right up to ourselves. He did more than share his vision with the disciples; he gave them himself in a way he had never done before, and in a way that anticipated the death he would die for them and for all, on the following day. In giving himself in the form of the bread and wine of the meal, he was declaring himself to be their food and drink. In calling on them to take and eat, to take and drink, he was asking them to take their stand with him, to give themselves to him as he was giving himself to them.
It was because of that supper and of what went on there that we are here in this church today. Jesus intended his last supper to be a beginning rather than an end. It was the first Eucharist. Ever since that meal, the church has gathered regularly in his name, to do and say what he did and said at that last supper — taking bread and wine, blessing both, breaking the bread and giving both for disciples to eat and drink.
Jesus continues to give himself as food and drink to his followers. He also continues to put it up to his followers to take their stand with him, to take in all he stands for, living by his values, walking in his way, even if that means the cross. Whenever we come to Mass and receive the Eucharist, we are making a number of important statements. We are acknowledging Jesus as our bread of life, as the one who alone can satisfy our deepest hungers. We are also declaring that we will throw in our lot with him, as it were, that we will follow in his way and be faithful to him all our lives, in response to his faithfulness to us. In that sense, celebrating the Eucharist is not something we do lightly. Our familiarity with the Mass and the frequency with which we celebrate it can dull our senses to the full significance of what we are doing. Every time we gather for the Eucharist, we find ourselves once more in that upper room with the first disciples, and the last supper with all it signified is present again to us.
Readings: 19 June 2022 – Corpus Christi – The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
I am very happy to read the homilies of Priests. I pray may the Good Lord bless “Association of Catholic Priests’ ?
Fr. Anthan Ilyas
Pakistan ??
Readings: Corpus Christi
The following is the homily from Holy Thursday this year. I hope it might spark some ideas for the feast of Corpus Christi.
In the Creed we speak of Jesus as consubstantial with the father and we speak of transubstantiation in the Eucharist but do we understand what that means for us?
We need to go back to the Latin language and to the ancient Greek philosophers.
Let’s start with Latin. What does substance mean and where do we get the word? It comes from the Latin word meaning to stand, which gives us words like station, stand, status; and the prefix sub, which means under, which we use with so many other words. And so we come to substance which means to stand under and leads us to understand not just a thing but an idea of the thing. So we have the word table and we understand what a table is in its substance, and can then identify many different kinds of tables, sizes or shapes or legs or tops or materials. All are tables and so we can say they are con-substantial, sharing in the same substance or idea or concept or being of table. So we have Father, Son and Holy Spirit which are of the same substance and yet are different in who they are and how we perceive them.
Trans-substance or trans-substantiation is a word that we know from the Eucharist, meaning that which we see as simply bread or wine share the substance of bread and wine like all other breads and wines. When we celebrate the Eucharist we believe that this common bread and wine is changed in its substance and is no longer just bread or wine but the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
We can think for a moment of ourselves. Who are we? What is our substance? We share the substance of being human, and yet we are all different. We are born, and are human persons. We change in many ways over a lifetime, but remain human persons in our substance. However, we change the expression of that substance throughout our lives. We are baptized, and we are then members of the body of Christ, still with the substance of human being, but also with the added dimension of members of the Body of Christ. If we marry, we take on the identity of husband or wife, and then father and mother. We retain the substance of human persons throughout, but are changed or transformed with a new identity, new reality.
And so in the liturgy, we call down the Spirit of God to transform, to change, the substance of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. It retains the substance of bread and wine as we see it, but changes in our understanding and knowledge of the substance.
All of this leads us to the most wonderful truth of who we are and who we become when we share in the Eucharist, in the bread and wine and therefore in the Body and Blood of Jesus himself. This sharing of the Body and Blood of Jesus, calls us to act as Jesus has acted, not as gods, but as servants of one another.
Readings: Corpus Christi
Key Message:
God did not want to be separated from us in the body in Heaven; He wants to have a oneness with us, in our body too.
So He lives in our body through the Holy Eucharist!!
We all have heard of the famous true incident of St. Antony of Padua and the mule.
St. Antony was trying to convince an unbelieving wealthy merchant of the reality of the existence of our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist. But the wealthy merchant, Mr. Bononillo, was not convinced and continued mocking the Eucharist. Then St. Anthony challenged the wealthy merchant, “If the mule you ride adored the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, would you believe in the truth of the Blessed Sacrament?” Bononillo agreed and he starved his mule for three days. On the day of the test, Bononillo brought his mule and placed the hay under the mule’s nose. St. Anthony came and stood a distance away with the Holy Eucharist. The mule turned his head and walked over to Saint Anthony. When the mule was close, the animal bent his front legs and kneeled in adoration! When Bononillo saw this miraculous change of events, he immediately knelt down and professed his belief in the truth of the real presence of our Lord Jesus.
Whenever we receive the Eucharist, let us realise that we are receiving the Body of our loving Lord Jesus Christ.
Do we wonder how God can be in just a small Eucharist?
In “The story of a soul (The autobiography of the Little Flower)”, Little Thérèse of Child Jesus explains it in her own childish ways. When she and her sister Celine were young, Celine asked Thérèse, “How can such a big God be in such a small Eucharist?” Little Thérèse explained, “Because God is Almighty. He can do whatever He wishes!!”
After the initiation of online Masses, some prefer watching online and are not inclined to receive the Holy Eucharist, even though they are able to come. It is because they consider it as a ritual rather than receiving the “Body of our loving Lord Jesus Christ”. What a great privilege it is!!
There is a general doubt whether when a priest blesses the Host and Wine will become the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the Last Supper, Our Lord Jesus blessed the bread and wine and said, “This is my body; This is my blood”, even before His crucifixion. When our Lord blessed the bread and wine, they became His Body and Blood. This special blessing has been conferred on our priests too. When our priests bless the bread and wine, they become the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Lord Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me”. Hence, it is on the instruction of our Lord Jesus that priests bless with their anointed hands and a huge miracle happens.
In John 6:54, our Lord Jesus Christ promises the gift of Heaven for those who have Communion religiously – “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise Him up on the last day”.
In John 6:57 our Jesus says “.. the one who feeds on me will live because of me”. We take earthly vitamin supplements to lead a healthy life. Can we take the Heavenly food our trip to Heaven?
We read about Saint Alexandrina da Costa, who lived only on the Eucharist for 13 years. Saints like Catherine of Siena and St. Joseph Cupertino also could live only the Eucharist for years. We are not called to be saints like them. But we can be the people whom our Lord Jesus desires to be. Our Jesus says (John 6:56) – “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them”. So our Lord Jesus desires us to be in Him and He to be in us by taking the Holy Eucharist lovingly.
Nowadays people are going into depression very easily. They do not have life in them. In John 6:53, our Lord Jesus Christ said, “Truly, Truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you”.
Eucharist is not only the nourishment for our spiritual journey, but it is also the nourishment of our mental and physical journey.
We read about the lady who with faith touched the hem of the garment of our Lord Jesus Christ and got cured. She was not even able to touch Our Lord or able to convey her problem to Him. Then how much will the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ cure us when we consume in faith?
In Psalm 22:14 it is written about the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ -“I am poured out like water and all my bones are disjointed. My heart is like wax; it melts away within me”. Yes, His heart melted like wax. There was nothing within Him. His body was crushed on the wine press of the cross and His blood was flowing out of His body from His head to foot. They are now in the chalice waiting to be consumed by us during each Mass.
Let us consume the Holy Body and Blood of our loving Lord Jesus Christ with loving adoration.