The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ C (2013)

The first reading and the psalm

are the only mentions in the Old Testament

of the mysterious figure of Melchizedek.

In the first reading,

he offers bread and wine,

he blessed Abraham

– while he still had his original name of Abram –

he received Abraham’s allegiance through tithes..

Abraham was the father of the people of Israel, the chosen people.

This made Melchizedek high status,

higher than the priests of Israel,

who had Abraham as their father.

That high status is reflected in the line from the psalm,

which looks forward to an eternal priest

You are a priest for ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.

In the New Testament,

the letter to the Hebrews, which we do not hear today,

is unequivocal in identifying Jesus

as the fulfilment of the hope expressed in the psalm.

Jesus is the eternal priest

who offers himself on Calvary,

who pours blessings on the whole world,

who receives our allegiance.

This priesthood of Jesus is brought out in the second reading.

There,

Paul is doing more than just saying what happened at the Last Supper.

He wants to stress for the Corinthians, and now for us,

what it means to obey the Lord’s command to

Do this as a memorial of me

He reminds them, and us, of Jesus’ words

over the broken bread and the cup:

This is my body, which is for you

This cup is the new covenant in my blood

Body broken,

life-blood separated from the body

for us,

for the forming of a new relationship, a new covenant,

between human beings and God.

Then, just in case the words don’t speak for themselves,

Paul explains

Until the Lord comes, therefore,

every time you eat this bread and drink this cup,

you are proclaiming his death

As we gather round the altar

we are, sacramentally, gathering round Calvary,

the cross is the altar on which Christ, the priest,

offers his broken body and pours out his blood.

He does this, once and for all, on Calvary.

In the Mass we are sacramentally,

that is, through a sign guaranteed to be effective,

joined to that offering on Calvary.

While sacramentally joining us to the offering on Calvary,

Jesus assures us he is really present:

This is my body....This is my blood

present under the appearance of bread and wine,

present under the appearance of food and drink,

given to us as nourishment

that we may be drawn into communion

with his offering on Calvary, with his self-sacrificing love:

every time you eat this bread and drink this cup,

you are proclaiming his death

In this eating and drinking, like the people in the Gospel,

we are fed together.

Our Communion with Jesus is not solitary but shared,

Jesus feeds us together

that we may together be his presence in the world –

people nourished by love

to be loving.

Our ‘Amen’ as we receive Communion is a profound prayer.

It seems like an individual prayer, but it isn’t.

In it, we are caught up and carried along by the faith of the Church.

In it the Church expresses

faith in the real presence of the Lord,

faith in the power of his death,

faith that, by God’s power, we truly become Christ in the world.

Vatican II’s document on the Church summarises all this

by teaching that,

the Eucharistic sacrifice (which) is the fount and apex

or, in another translation,

the source and summit of the whole Christian life.

Our Christian life flows out from Mass,

we become what we receive,

we take Jesus out into the world.

Our Christian life reaches its height at Mass,

as we are privileged to offer ourselves with Jesus

associating ourselves with His selfless sacrifice.

Pope Francis has asked Catholics across the world to join him

in a time of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament today

as part of the Year of Faith.

This is a chance to spend some time in personal prayer,

dwelling on the greatness of the gift of the Mass

and giving special thanks for it.

Here we will do this at 4pm.

Please do consider coming.

And, in this Mass,

let us all strive to give our full attention to the Eucharistic prayer

and let us approach Holy Communion

with a renewed sense of wonder and reverence.