Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ – June 14, 2020
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ – June 14, 2020
Reflection
Reflection
Jesus was a famous preacher. Many considered him a great prophet. People saw in him a rising religious career and they flocked towards him, drawn by his words and his miracles. Yet here is an episode where Jesus lost almost all his followers, got unfriended, received unlikes and bad reviews. It was the downturn of Jesus’ stardom but he knew what he had to do and pressed on.
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” This statement so scandalized the crowd they left Jesus and ceased following him. Jesus, however, was insistent. What he teaches is something that was a radical fulfillment of God’s promises in the Old Testament.
The chosen people has always remembered how God cared for them in the desert. He provided them with water and manna, the bread from heaven. He saved them from death and from the venom of the serpent just by looking at a serpent mounted on a pole. This was a story of survival. That in escaping slavery, they had to struggle through the desert and God fed them both with food and his words.
Jesus now offers himself as the food that will save from death and slavery. He is both Word and food. He offers his blood and his flesh as the real bread from heaven. Just as each specie has to consume in order to extend their lives, Jesus gives himself to man that humanity may gain eternal life. The fullness of life within God, is passed on to man by allowing man to consume God.
This is one of the most difficult teachings of Christ and even now, we cannot fully grasp the mystery of it. Yet it does happen that when a Christian unites himself with Jesus in the most physical way, he becomes a part of him together with all who is united in Christ. God made this possible in Jesus who is God-in-the-flesh yet it is only through faith that man opens himself to this mystery.
True Christian faith does not only believe in the words of Jesus, but also feeding from Jesus. There is no other way.
First Reading
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14B-16A
Moses said to the people:
“Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God,
has directed all your journeying in the desert,
so as to test you by affliction
and find out whether or not it was your intention
to keep his commandments.
He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,
and then fed you with manna,
a food unknown to you and your fathers,
in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live,
but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.
“Do not forget the LORD, your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
that place of slavery;
who guided you through the vast and terrible desert
with its saraph serpents and scorpions,
its parched and waterless ground;
who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock
and fed you in the desert with manna,
a food unknown to your fathers.”
Responsorial Psalm
PS 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20
R. (12) Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Second Reading
1 Corinthians 10:16-17
Brothers and sisters:
The cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break,
is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one body,
for we all partake of the one loaf.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 6:51-58.
Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:
“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.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me
will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
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