Cycle A - Year I:  

11 June 2023: Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ 

(Liturgical Color: White)

Readings:

First Reading:        Deuteronomy 8;2-3, 14-16

Second Reading:   1 Corinthians 10:16-17

Gospel:  Please Read John 6:51-58 

The living Bread in the Eucharist!

Why do Catholics believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist? The easiest answer is because our Lord Jesus Christ Himself said so.

The doctrine of the Real Presence asserts that in the Holy Eucharist Jesus is literally and wholly present --body and blood, soul and divinity-- under the appearances of bread and wine. So that when we consume the Eucharist, we are asked to believe this beyond human understanding and comprehension.

This Sunday is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, or more popularly known as Corpus Christi.     

The Holy Eucharist is a Mystery of Faith to our human mind. But we believe because Jesus Himself teaches us this Truth.  For the Holy Eucharist is the very center and source of our Christian life. So that even after His ascension, Jesus chose to remain with us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, to be our food through our spiritual journey.

In the Gospel reading from St. John, the central theme is about Jesus speaking about the Bread of Life: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." (Jn 6:51)   

The great St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that Jesus' presence in the Eucharist is visus, tactus, gustus. That means to say, our Lord's presence is not imaginary in our mind. Because when we receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, we actually see (visus), touch (tactus) and taste (gustus) our Lord Himself. In other words, He is an "edible" God as some theologians would say.  

In the Eucharist Jesus reveals the hospitality of God. Everyone is invited to the divine banquet in order for each of us to foster our relationship with our Lord Jesus. Now, eating His flesh and drinking His blood is not an invitation to cannibalism, as the Jews feared. Instead, in the Eucharist the bread and wine are given a new and awesomely deep meaning: they become the very person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So that in the Eucharist, we deepen our relationship with Jesus by becoming more and more like Him. Thus, we meet God in this mysterious and dramatic way: God gives Himself to us, and we try to shape our lives into a loving gift for God. 

In the teaching of the Catholic Church, the Real Presence is made possible through transubstantiation. It means that during the consecration by the priest of the bread and wine, the whole substance of the bread and wine are being turned miraculously into the whole substance of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The Church does not explain how transubstantiation takes place but affirms that it happens mysteriously "in a way surpassing understanding".

Finally, our human mind cannot completely fathom the mystery of Christ's sacramental presence in the Eucharist, so much like the teaching on the Most Holy Trinity, which we celebrated last Sunday. But we do believe that when we gather in Jesus' name at the Holy Eucharist we dare repeat with faith: "We adore You devoutly, O Godhead unseen, who truly lie hidden under the appearances of Bread and Wine." Amen.   

A blessed Feast of Corpus Christi to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!