Sunday Gospel Comment
Alberic Jacovone OSB
YEAR C THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST Gen 14,18-20; 1 Cor 11,23-26; Lk 9,11-17 An awesome Real Presence “Real Abiding Presence”.
For us Catholics, Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is special. The same
Jesus, Son of the Living God, who came to live among us as Incarnate Lord, &
for us suffered his horrendous Passion, (in the Mel Gibson’s fashion!!!) that
same Jesus has established his abode in our midst.
In the Eucharist, he gives us his Body & Blood, nourishes &
strengthens us , seals his covenant of love & makes us sharers of his
Passion & Death. To be sure, God’s presence shines everywhere, in every
living being and in every event of life. Of course, God is powerfully present in
his word & among his people. But still the Eucharist is special and on
‘Corpus Christi’ Day, we honour this Presence. During his earthly life,
the Lord’s presence was physical and visible. Now God (Father, Son &
Spirit) exercises a spiritual presence, deeper and universal, a presence that is
perceived by faith. Across the history of the Church and in the life of each
person, there are times when this presence is felt strongly and times when
-sadly- it seems to vanish. On such occasions we experience: doubt &
obscurity, absence of the Spirit, night of the soul, silence of God. But
-paradoxically-, faith tells us that God is nearest at such times. Indeed, there
are times when we are unable to grasp any signs of God’s presence in & out
of ourselves, and such dreadful periods assail us as individuals, communities
and socially: we speak of secularization, eclipse of the sacred & ‘death
of God’. However, faith reminds us that these periods are authentic
opportunities for a purified & renewed discovery of God’s presence, which
is never tied up to personal feelings or cultural signs: it is a vision that
finds in faith alone its perception & insight. Take
& eat, take & drink. From beginning to end, the Bible uses bread & wine as symbols of an
intimacy with God. In Genesis 3,19, bread signifies nourishment: (‘you shall
earn your bread by the sweat of your brow’). In Exodus 16,14 people ate manna
in the desert, (called ‘bread of Angels’). In Prov.9.5 we read: ‘come
& eat my bread, come & drink my wine at the banquet that God has
prepared for you’. Of course bread is far more than bodily nourishment:
‘Not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God’ said Jesus to the Devil, when tempted in the desert (Mt 4,3), In the
‘Our Father’, when we ask: ‘Give us this daily bread’ (Mt 6,11) we ask
for food that sustains every aspect of body and spirit. Today on Corpus Christi
Day, we are invited to meditate prayerfully on the ‘Bread of Life’, as found
in John Ch.6 & in Paul 1Cor. 10,16. ‘My Father gives you the true bread
from heaven, a bread that is the life of the world - I am the bread of life, he
who comes to me will never be hungry, & never thirsty - I am the living
bread that came down from heaven, he who eats of this bread will live for ever -
the bread that I will give is for the life of the world - it is my flesh - Truly
I tell you, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in
you...’. These powerful words became a reality at the Last Supper, when Jesus
took bread and wine & established a communion with us, with the sacred
ritual of ‘Take & eat, Take & drink’.
Today, let us honour the Lord’s Real Presence and our Real Union of
life with Him. St. Paul puts it powerfully: The bread we eat and the cup we
share is a communion with Christ. There is one bread and we though many are one
body.... We know that in the Bible, ‘to eat’ is the same as to receive in
oneself and to live for God, as Jesus puts it: as I live for the Father, so he
who eats me lives for me. Today, as you cut bread, trace a sign of the cross on
it. ______________________________________ |
