Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ

FEAST OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST B CYCLE

2009

When I was pastor at St. Maurice parish several years ago, I used to be invited to a backyard barbecue at a parishioner’s home every first of July to celebrate Canada Day with their family and friends. Always at that barbecue I would met new people, and usually there would be one or more priests from some other part of the world. As you know, we are fortunate here in Ottawa to have St. Paul’s University, where several foreign priests come to do post graduate work in theology, or canon law, or in some other discipline. Over the years at this Canada Day barbecue, I met a priest from South Africa, another from Ireland, one or two from the United States, and also one from Australia. I often met lay people there too from different corners of the world. Our hosts made it a point to invite people they knew would be alone on Canada Day, and whom they knew would enjoy meeting others. Everyone was made to feel very comfortable and at home at that gathering. Hospitality is a very important ministry, and my friends, Basil and Margaret MacDonald, were very generous and expert in their practice of hospitality.

When we gather for Mass here each Sunday, we should make hospitality our business as well. Everyone should feel at home here, and we should make others, especially any newcomers or visitors, feel welcome here as we worship and pray together with Jesus, our Lord. Here at Mass especially we are the Body of Christ, and here with Jesus we worship God. Here at Mass no one should ever feel they are alone, but rather we should be especially conscious of our relationship as brothers and sisters of Jesus, and of one another.

In today’s first reading, we heard about God’s chosen people of old, and about the sacred covenant God made with His people through Moses. God told them that He would be their God, He would be with them and they would prosper, but that they in turn were to obey Him. As one voice the community said to Moses: “all the words that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient," and so Moses sealed their promise by sacrificing oxen and sprinkling the sacrificial blood on the people.

Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God, is with us here as we gather for Mass, and through Jesus we have a new covenant with God, which He sealed by the sacrifice of His own Body and Blood on the Cross. Here at Mass, Jesus changes the bread and wine on our altar into His Body and Blood given for us. This doesn’t mean that Jesus dies again each time we have Mass. Rather it means that the one perfect sacrifice of Himself, which He offered on Mount Calvary, is re-presented, or presented again, here on our altars, and so now we are able to offer it with Jesus. Of course, along with the offering of Jesus, we should also offer ourselves, all that we are and all that we have to God. When we receive Holy Communion, Jesus nourishes us with Divine Food, with the Bread of Life, which is His Body and Blood. Here at Mass, through the priest who presides, Jesus says to each of us: "THIS IS MY BODY GIVEN FOR YOU...THIS IS THE CUP OF MY BLOOD POURED OUT FOR YOU".

The famous Dutch painter, Rembrandt, once painted a beautiful picture of Jesus, in which we notice that there is no halo around His head, as we might expect. Instead, we see a halo surrounding Jesus’ hand. By this painting Rembrandt was trying to say that Jesus’ hands are holy hands; they are sacred hands, which He used to heal the sick, to comfort the sorrowful, to give sight to the blind, to cleanse the lepers, to bless, break and distribute the five loaves of bread and the few fishes to feed thousands of people, which were used even to transform death into life, as when Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus to life, raised the dead son of the widow of Naim, and raised up His friend, Lazarus, from the dead. At the Last Supper, Jesus also took bread and wine into His holy hands, and changed them into divine food saying to His apostles gathered there: “Take and eat, this is My Body...., this is the cup of My Blood..... do this in remembrance of Me.” Also at the Last Supper Jesus used His sacred hands to wash and dry the feet of His apostles. The institution of the Holy Eucharist, and the washing of feet were two actions of Jesus at the Last Supper that were intrinsically linked to each other. Jesus said: “If I Who am Teacher and Lord have washed your feet then you must wash each other’s feet.”(Jn.13:14-15) Jesus fed His apostles at the Last Supper, and He feeds us now at this Mass, with His Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist, so that we can go from here spiritually renewed and strengthened, able to serve the needs of others in His Name.

There is a nineteenth century painting which depicts a long row of beggars waiting in a soup line. They were all very poorly dressed, obviously living in poverty. Around the head of one of them, barely perceptible, is a halo, indicating that Jesus is in that beggars’ line. Many years later, a student artist was instructed to paint a copy of that masterpiece. The student did a remarkable job, so much so that the uneducated eye could not tell the copy from the original, except for one detail. Instead of painting a halo on the head of one of the beggars in the line, to indicate Jesus, the student artist painted a bloody crown of thorns. “This is My Blood - - which is poured out for many. Everyone who is of the Truth hears My voice. Come to Me”, says the Lord. “The strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal.” Let us come to Jesus and thank Him for the wonderful gift we have received from Him - the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. What a marvellous and powerful sign of God’s covenant love for each of us here gathered as His people in this Church.