The Feast of the Body & Blood of Christ, Feast of the Eucharist

Second Reading

Brothers and sisters:

I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,

that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,

took bread, and, after he had given thanks,

broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me."

In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,

"This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,

you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

As we celebrate this Body and Blood of Christ Sunday we could look into so many themes all our Readings, including the Gospel could enlighten us into understanding the messages of this Sunday. To some of you, I have elaborated on the theme of Divine Providence for those who follow the Master Jesus to the desert just to listen to his teachings, and promises. Actually the 1st Reading and the Gospel, on the surface, dwell on that theme and similar theme like "Bless others, and you will be blessed!" The very thing that happened to Abram in relation to the High Priest & King of Salem. He blessed Abram for his war victories against the enemies, and Abram blessed him with a 10th of his wealth. Then from our Gospel, Jesus blessed not just the 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, but initially the people who followed him to the desert proclaiming to them the Kingdom of God, then, particularly individuals who he cured of illnesses. Result, along with making them a spiritually, and physically fed people, they turned from being a hungry crowd into individuals all very satisfied & full because they have followed the Lord to the desert.

Theologically, however, today’s Feast of the Body & Blood of Christ is the same Feast and Eucharistic Celebration we supposedly celebrate every each Sunday, or for that matter at every single Mass we attend. And what is this deeper theological theme that we are specially celebrating today? It is the theme and teaching on the Paschal Mystery of our salvation in Christ. When Christ instituted the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine at the time before he sacrificed himself on the Cross, at that Last Supper Jesus commanded us to "do it in remembrance of Him". Do what? Do what he did, which he would memorialize for us by the breaking of the bread among the Apostles & pouring of the on each cup of the Apostles. Which was a pre-enactment of what he would do literally physically – break his body, and shed his blood to "satisfy" as ransom for our offenses to the Father. Thus, to memorialize & re-enact his act like he commanded us, we are asked, and we are expected to DO THIS: namely, suffer ourselves becoming broken-hearted all the way, even to the point of our death in the name of participating atonement with Christ for all the sins of mankind.

And so here comes the universal truth! Each one of us, you and I are all called to bear sacrificial suffering if we are to become obedient to Christ’s command to, quote: Do this in remembrance of Me.

Inescapably, and invariably we all suffer. At every stage of our living we always encounter suffering in different varieties. Poverty, sickness, intrigues, injustice, all forms of roadblocks, whether - advertent or inadvertent, and all demands upon our persons, either for necessary measuring up or even just so we could survive. And then there are those "irritants of life" that do not seem to want to go away, e.g. an impossible relation, a recurring sickness, an unfortunate bad family heritage of broken homes, or repeat family financial failures, or one’s type of race, or type of sex, or color of skin, or smallness of stature, specially physically, etc..... The attitude of the world is overcome and triumph over all these inequities of living. That is well and good, even if as it were Platonic, unreal, or ivory-towerish. Not that we are giving up on doing and applying ourselves to distinct responsibilities of our duties and calling in life. We still have to try our best. But like Jesus himself said, the poor has always been with us; meaning poverty is here to stay.

That is why precisely the Lord sees blessedness in poverty. Blessed are the poor! But more to the point of today’s message, blessed are we if we embrace what anyway we can not permanently escape from: suffering. But if and we embrace it in the spirit of participating atonement with the Lord for the sins of the world. If we accept, like Jesus, to be broken up body and soul as Priestly sacrificial offerings of the Church to the Father to save many souls, in whose behalf plenty of offered-up atonement is needed. But isn’t Christ’s death on the Cross enough payment for the sins of the world? Yes, there is already that infinite, or absolute reservoir of graces for all the sins of the world. But in the economy of salvation, there are not yet enough distributors/channels of these graces for application to such needy souls. Sinners do not necessarily turn in sorrow for their sins. Intercessors from among the Body of Christ, the Church, are needed so sinners are made to change their hearts of unbelief to hearts of belief in order to avail of Christ’s graces of salvation for them. Do this in remembrance of me; become aton-ers for hard-hearted sinners/for sinners refusing salvation – in remembrance of me – sacrificially suffer with me for them refusing to believe– in remembrance of me.