Corpus Christi-B4

Corpus Christi-B4 Please read first: Exodus 24:3-8; Hebrews 9:11-15; Mark 14: 12-16.22-26.

At one of the settlements on a native American reservation, where the priest was able to visit the Catholics only rarely, a government agent came and gave away things such as waistcoats, shirts and tobacco. To one old man, who was a Catholic, the agent said jokingly: ‘Your priest doesn’t look after you, he doesn’t seem to have brought you any present, does he?’ The old man pointed to his bare chest. ‘Can you see into my soul?’ ‘No I can’t’, said the agent. ‘Well if you could, you would see the beautiful white garment that God gave me when the Blackrobe baptized me. And every time he comes, he washes it clean for me in the Blood of Jesus Christ. And when he gives me Holy Communion, he puts Jesus himself into my heart. Your tobacco soon goes off in smoke, and your shirts soon wear out, but the present that the Blackrobe brings will stay with me and take me to Heaven.’

The old native American got the point about Holy Communion; through it we receive Jesus himself; body and blood, soul and divinity; we receive Him in his fullness. This is what we celebrate with today’s solemn feast, which is simply called as ‘Corpus Christ’, and which should be called more accurately as ‘Corpus and Sanguis Christi’.

I wonder if you evr thought about when exactly during Mass become the bread and the wine Jesus’ body and blood. Most people would say it happens when the priest lays hands over the bread and the wine and calls down the Holy Spirit upon them. However the transformation only finishes when the priest repeats the words of Jesus, saying: ‘this is my Body, which will be given up for you’ and ‘this is my Blood which is poured out for you’.

Today’s solemn feast is also a good opportunity to think about how we receive the consecrated bread and wine; physically only, or spiritually as well. Receiving Holy Communion only physically is not enough, because Jesus is not offering merely a physical relationship with us. He is offering a spiritual Communion as well, which means that He wants us to be like Him with regards to how we love the Father and the Holy Spirit and fellow human beings whom they have created. So our going forward to receive Holy Communion should be an expression that we are grateful for their offer and we say yes to Jesus’ invitation to be like Him spiritually as well. Otherwise Holy Communion remains an eating exercise. So let us become what we eat; or rather let us become whom we receive. Let us become another Christ in words, in silence and in actions. That is a real sign that your Holy Communion isn’t a mere consumption and eating.

Holy Communion is not a reward for being good and sinless, but it is an invitation from Jesus through the priest to renew your communion with Jesus; to reconnect every aspect of your life; most of all to promise to change your relationship with people and with creation in accord with Jesus’ example, and with the help of the Holy Spirit.

We need the Holy Spirit’s help, in fact we need to be completely immersed in the Holy Spirit if we want to be in Communion with Jesus and the Father as well, because you cannot ignore any person of the Holy Trinity, if you wish to be in communion with any of them. They are in Communion with each other. We tend to think only of Jesus at Holy Communion time, but remember that He is in Communion with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So when we receive Jesus’ body and blood, soul and divinity, we should also remember that through Him we enter into Communion with the entire Holy Trinity.

So today when you come forward to enter into Communion with Christ, think also of the Father and the Holy Spirit and do this as an expression of your desire to bring into this communion every aspect of your life; especially the way you treat God and other people.