Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Feasts / Solemnities

The Easter season is over and we are now technically in Ordinary Time but first there are two important Feasts. The readings for Feasts always encompass an Old Testament reading, a New Testament reading, and a Gospel reading. All three readings will relate to each other through the theme of the Feast day.

Today’s Readings and the Feast of the Body and Blood

We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you have made known to us through Jesus your Servant; to you be the glory forever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever.
— The Didache

Last week was the transcendent reality of one God three persons. This week we get the very comforting reality that God’s presence is mediated through simple bread and wine in the context of a community meal. Today we’re looking at the God who nourishes us.

This feast originated from visions received by Juliana of Liège, a Belgian saint in the 12th century. In her visions, God laments that there is no feast to celebrate the Body and Blood of Christ. It was incorporated into the liturgical calendar in the late 13th century.

Initially it was primarily a processional feast where the Eucharist was carried around town and venerated. It’s important to know that it was an era where most people did not have access to the Eucharist and this was the only way they could come anywhere near it. At that time, people were content to simply gaze at the consecrated host.

Prior to Vatican 2 the feast was called Corpus Christi and the emphasis was on devotion to the Blessed sacrament reserved in a tabernacle and presented for adoration. Now it’s called the Feast of the Body and the Blood and the emphasis is on the communal celebration of the Eucharist. Today the feast reminds us that it’s not enough to simply gaze on something, no matter how lovingly. We are called to become that something and we do that in the context of community.

“The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”
Pope Francis in the Joy of the Gospel

On the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in 2015, Pope Francis said this:

[The] Eucharist fulfills the Covenant, which sanctifies us, purifies us and unites us in worthy communion with God. Thus we learn that the Eucharist is not a prize for the good, but is strength for the weak, for sinners. It is forgiveness, it is the Viaticum that helps us to move forward, to walk.
Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in 2015

And then this quote from John Paul II 1987 social teaching encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis: The social concern of the Church:

All of us who take part in the Eucharist are called to discover, through this sacrament, the profound meaning of our actions in the world in favor of development and peace; and to receive from it the strength to commit ourselves ever more generously, following the example of Christ, who in this sacrament lays down his life for his friends (cf. Jn 15:13). Our personal commitment, like Christ’s and in union with his, will not be in vain but certainly fruitful.
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis: The social concern of the Church

Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14B-16A

In this passage we’re called to remember the past in order to act in a certain way in the future. You see this a lot in the Psalms – remembering what God has done and proceeding in confidence that God will continue to work that way in the future.

Today we remember the Exodus event, in particular the way in which God miraculously feeds his people in the desert which you can read in Exodus 16.

The whole book of Deuteronomy is basically a retelling of the Law and all the key stories. The Israelites are standing on the brink of finally entering the promised land and this is Moses’ grand farewell speech. So he reminds them of everything God had done with the intention of having them rest firm in the knowledge that God will continue to be with them.

Verse 3 reminds the Israelites of their desert trials. God let them be afflicted, to know hunger, and then he satisfied that hunger. And all this had a purpose: to know we do not live by bread alone. He calls it “food unknown to you.” The word manna comes from the Hebrew “man hu” which means “what is it?!”

Verses 4-13 talk about many other ways that God provided for them in the desert.

Sometimes we have to stop and remember all that God has done for us and then proceed in confidence that God will continue to work that way in the future.

What can you call to mind right now to remember that God has cared for you in the past? How can then allow you to proceed in confidence that God will continue to work that way in the future?

1 Corinthians 10:16-17

Remember – it’s not enough to simply look at the Eucharist. We are called to become it. The Christians at Corinth were receiving the Body of Christ but they weren’t becoming the Body and Paul took issue with that.

Verse 16 is a rhetorical device used often by Paul; he puts it in this form because his audience would have had no doubt on the matter – they would have answered “of course!” Paul probably draws on a liturgical formula here that his community would have heard at every Euchristic celebration.

Paul says that the body and blood are a “participation” in Christ. This is the Greek word koinónia – fellowship. The word emphasizes the communal nature of the Eucharist.

It’s also worth noting this: we don’t consume the Eucharist and turn it into ourselves like we do with normal food. Rather we consume it and are turned into it by that consuming. I’m reminded of St. Augustine’s saying: “Behold what you are, become what you receive.”

Verse 17 tells us to “partake.” This Greek word has the idea “to be or become; to be a part of a group or tribe.” Also in this verse Paul uses the word body which means different things to him in different places. In Verse 16 “body” has a Christological and sacramental emphasis – he is talking about Christ’s incarnation and his sacramental presence. Here in verse 17 Paul shifts the meaning and emphasis to ecclesiology – now he’s talking about the body as the Church. The body is now not “what” but “we” – the community which participates in Christ’s sacramental body in the Supper.

Participation in Jesus and his sacramental body becomes identified with incorporation into the Church as the Body of Christ. That is to say that we can’t separate the Eucharist from the community. This was a key insight of Vatican 2 and rescuing the Eucharist from some devotion that a priest engaged in and returning it to something for which the whole community is necessary in order to make it a reality. This is also why Eucharistic adoration received much less emphasis in the immediate post Vatican 2 era. I think the loss of this key insight lays behind much of the yearning to return to a pre Vatican 2 liturgy where the priest is the key player and the laity is simply present. Consider this paragraph from Sacrosanctum Concillium, the Vatican 2 document on liturgy reform:

The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. They should be instructed by God’s word and be nourished at the table of the Lord’s body; they should give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all. (paragraph 48).
Sacrosanctum Concillium

How do you connect the Eucharist with participating in the body and blood of Christ?

John 6:51-58

Verse 26 begins John’s bread of life discourse where Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life. Although John’s gospel does not have a last supper narrative, most scholars agree that this passage is John’s presentation of the institution of the Eucharist.

You could sum up this passage by saying: Jesus, the true bread, replaces the former bread: the manna and the Law.

This whole discourse outlines the events of salvation history:
Verses 26-51b the coming of Christ as the bread from heaven into the world – the incarnation
Verse 51c surrender of himself to death
Verses 53-58 availability of his surrendered life as the nourishment of the faithful in holy communion
John does not regard the Eucharist as a thing in itself, detached from the total saving event of Christ, but as the means by which this saving event is constantly made available for present participation in the life of the church.

Verse 52 references “the Jews.” In John’s gospel “the Jews” are always those outside the believing community: the ones who don’t believe.

Verse 53 uses the phrase “flesh and blood.” This was a common way of characterizing the whole human being: not just skin and bones but all of what makes us who we are.

Verse 58 connects us back to the Deuteronomy reading. Moses told the Israelites to remember the story of how God fed them in the wilderness but Jesus reminds us that manna didn’t permanently satisfy them. This is in direct contrast to Jesus who does satisfy.

Throughout this passage John uses the Greek word “sarx” for body, a reference to physical flesh. Verse 53 says we are to eat that flesh. The Greek word used here means to partake of food or consume a meal. This is the “respectable” form of the verb – the one to use in polite company. In the next verse he switches to a verb for “eat” that means “to gnaw, munch, crunch with the teeth.” This is the less acceptable, rather crude verb usually used in reference to animals – one that definitely connotes physically consuming something. He uses this word again in verse 57.

The use of this vocabulary makes it challenging to see this as anything other than literal. This is confirmed by the verses following the lectionary passage: the disciples respond with ““This saying is hard; who can accept it?” And verse 66 confirms “As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”

If the Eucharist is Jesus and we consume the Eucharist, how much of us is Christ? As much as we will allow. We have to receive what is offered.

How does the physicality of John’s Eucharist narrative make you feel?

In what ways are you becoming what you consume?

Questions to ponder