Year A
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The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ
“Behold the bread of angels sent
For pilgrims in their banishment,
The bread for God’s true children meant,
That may not unto dogs be given”.[1]
Not that St. Thomas Aquinas had anything against dogs. As he reflects on the gift of the Lord’s Body and Blood in today’s sequence ‘Lauda Sion Salvatorem’, St. Thomas is inviting us to consider that our faith in Jesus and his Paschal Mystery, a faith which opens us to eternal life, is expressed and nourished by consuming the Lord’s flesh and blood which is real food and drink. To receive Holy Communion is to have complete faith and trust in our baptismal union with Jesus and to believe that by eating and drinking “The living body is our food; our drink the ever-precious blood”[2] as St.Thomas puts it. Back to the dogs, they would be drawn to eat bread; the believing Christian is drawn to eat the body of the risen Lord.
Having renewed the promises of Baptism; having celebrated the Paschal Mystery and Pentecost; having honoured the Trinity, we pass into ordinary time and Green vestments, but not before celebrating “Corpus et Sanguis Christi”. What we have celebrated during Eastertide we are now called to proclaim through the manner and style of our lives and by our word and example: the resurrection of Jesus and his presence in the world. Before we launch into the time of the Holy Spirit and our mission to all people, today’s feast stands as a reminder that we are empowered and nourished by the gift of the Eucharist as we carry out the task and commitment of our Baptism. The Lord Jesus is truly present as his word is proclaimed and he is truly present as we eat and drink his Body and Blood. The response to that great gift is to love as he loves us. We are to become what we eat.
Sacramental communion with the flesh and blood of Jesus draws us into the life of Christ and, therefore, into his eternal abiding with the Father. And our Eucharistic union with Jesus is not something static. In that union we are caught up in the movement of the eternal love of the Trinity and in Jesus’s sacrificial love for the world.[3] As we consume the Lord’s flesh and blood our responsibility is to see that our flesh and blood is transformed so as to reflect Jesus’s presence and action in the world “that others will know you are my disciples”[4].
And one more thing. We offer the Lord’s Body and Blood to the Father making present that eternal act of thanksgiving and praise which is the prayer of Jesus. As the prefaces remind us, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation always and everywhere to give you thanks”[5]. Our gratitude to God for all his gifts must be a life-giving thread feeding our faith, shaping our moral lives, and underpinning our participation in the Eucharistic Prayer, the great prayer of thanksgiving.
[1]Lauda Sion
[2]ibid
[3]See Brendan Byrne SJ in Life Abounding, pages 121-125.
[4]John 13.35
[5]Common Preface 1 “The Renewal of all things in Christ.
Today, the Church puts before our minds the mystery of the Eucharist. Much ink has been split on this topic. Today, let us focus on the fruits, or end, purpose of the Eucharist, which the Preface and Prayer after Communion of the liturgy puts before us. Jesus with his Apostles at the Last Supper established the saving memorial of the Cross. Every time we celebrate the Mass, we are “plugging” into the Paschal Mystery. That is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Nourished by this sacred mystery, we are made holy, or ‘whole’ in God, so the human family, bounded together, may grow by one faith and united by one bond of charity. The celebration of the liturgy leads to unity and charity, and never to division and bitterness. Through our participation in the Eucharist we will delight for all eternity in the divine life of God. Another term to describe this reality is Holy Communion. The reception of the precious Body and Blood of Christ foreshadows this reality. The Eucharist is never an end in itself, but a means or an instrument for communion and mission, to go out and share this communion with the world. Therefore, there is a fittingness that the Church promotes a procession with the Blessed Sacrament after Mass to show forth this mission aspect of the Eucharist. Keep in mind, it is desirable that a procession takes place after the Mass in which the Host to be carried in the procession is consecrated. This stresses the intrinsic connection between the celebration of the Mass and the Eucharistic species. Through the public procession we give a public witness of faith, devotion, and adoration towards the sacrament (cf. Eucharistic Processions in Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist outside Mass).
These hymns have been picked and chosen from different sources.
One bread, one body (CFE578, L832, LHON538)
I am the bread of life (CFE272, L629, LHON349)
Guide Me, O thou Great Redeemer (CFE233, L960, LHON307, TCH221)
Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour (CFE379,L769, LHON444, TCH121)
This is my body, broken for you (CFE730, L627, LHON681)
Bread for the world, a world of hunger (CFE92, L625)
Key
CFE - Celebration Hymnal for Everyone
L – Laudate
LHON – Liturgical Hymns Old and New (Mayhew, 1999)
TCH – The Catholic Hymnbook (Gracewing)
Do you have questions about the liturgy and how we are called to participate in it? Explore how the Church councils, saints, and popes have answered this key question and many more.
Every movement of the Mass is rich in meaning but we can become over-familiar with it. Rediscover the Mass and explore how it relates to the Exodus story, where many of its rituals come from, and how it makes Jesus present to us today.
