THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
29 MAY 2016
“In
those days, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine.” We may not be Melchizedek. But, we are the people of Jesus Christ,
conformed to him as kings, priests, and prophets through Baptism. And, we are about to do the same thing
shortly (depending on how long I drag out this homily!). At the Preparation of the Altar and Gifts, we
will bring forward gifts of bread and wine, along with our sacrificial tithe
(and on the first Sunday of the month, gifts of food for the poor). Then we ask God the Father to accept our
sacrificial gifts.
Why did God
choose these gifts to be an acceptable offering? They are simple, consumable, and say
something about us. The bread is composed of wheat and water. The wine is made of grapes from the
vine. Wheat, grapes, and water are gifts
to us from the earth and ultimately are gifts from God. Through human effort, they take their present
form. When the priest pours a little water
into the wine, he prays silently: “By
the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of
Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” Through the Eucharist, the Lord draws us into
his divinity, despite our flaws and failures to love.
Melchizedek had offered his gifts
of bread and wine to express his gratitude for the victory God had given to
Abram. In gratitude for all God’s gifts
to us, we offer our gifts of bread and wine.
Following the earliest tradition of the Last Supper which Saint Paul
handed on to the Corinthians, we do what Jesus did in the multiplication of the
loaves and fishes. We take gifts of
bread and wine. The priest prays the
blessing prayer (the Eucharistic Prayer), trusting that the Holy Spirit will
transform these gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. We break the consecrated Bread at the singing
of the Lamb of God. And we give the Body
and Blood of Christ when you come forward singing the Lord’s praises.
We celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday
(every day for some), because we are a grateful people. Today’s Solemnity invites us to reflect on the
Eucharist, which is the source and summit of all of our prayer. The Eucharist calls us to conversion and
repentance. At the beginning of each
Mass, we are invited to call to mind our sins.
We honestly admit that we have failed to love as God has loved us, and
we open ourselves to the Lord’s invitation to turn more completely to the Lord
and change what needs to be changed. The
Eucharist evangelizes us. Through the
Word, the Lord teaches us and invites us to connect his Word with the many
words we hear throughout the week. The
Eucharist is reconciling. Through his
perfect Sacrifice, Jesus Christ has reconciled us with the Father. In our liturgical remembering, that
reconciling action is made present in a way that we can speak of Christ’s real
presence in the Eucharist. The Eucharist
is about mission. We are sent out to
love and serve the Lord and each other.
When the
priest prays the Eucharistic Prayer (the blessing prayer) in the name of the
assembled congregation, he invokes the Holy Spirit twice. Before he prays the words of institution, he
asks the Holy Spirit to transform our gifts of bread and wine into the Body and
Blood of Christ. After we have proclaimed
the Mystery of Faith, he prays that the Holy Spirit transform us who receive
the Lord’s Body and Blood more fully into our true identity: members of the Body of Christ. As members of his Body, we do what we can to
make the Kingdom of God more visible.
Our efforts may be feeble and weak, and it seems that we cannot
accomplish much. That is the reaction of
the Twelve in today’s Gospel. But we learn
the same lesson which they learned. Our
feeble efforts can be used by God’s incredibly abundant love to accomplish much
more than we can imagine.
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