The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

For mere human beings living on earth, we can receive no greater gift than the Body, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus in the Eucharist. For the past three weeks, we have celebrated important feasts, beginning with the Ascension, Pentecost, and the great mystery of the Holy Trinity. Today, we worship the gift of the Body and Blood of Jesus.

These feasts have one central theme, which begins with the Incarnation. When the Word became flesh, something extraordinary happened. The fall in the garden caused the gulf between God and his creatures, and the only way out of the division was the reconciliation effected through Jesus Christ.  

The vital moments in salvation history reinforce that the reunion between God and his people happened. The foundation of these feasts insists that heaven and earth intersect, where God has an intimate relationship through the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist.   

The words of Jesus, as recorded by Saint Paul in today’s reading, could not be more straightforward or more direct: “This is my body. Do this in remembrance of me.” At the Eucharist, Jesus makes himself bodily present for us. He is there as truly as if he had walked into the room, and he invites us to unite ourselves with him.  Jesus asks us to let him come to us through the means he chooses: bread and wine. As the bread and wine become incorporated into our bodies, so Jesus becomes integrated into our beings, and we into his. Nothing could be more intimate than sharing our body with his, and proof that eternity is accessible even in a temporal world.

When we receive the Eucharist, God unites himself to us. A common complaint is that Catholics who eat of his Body and Blood do not seem to be any better than those who don’t. The misconception comes about because an essential factor is often ignored. The Eucharist is not a magical thing that transforms a person all on its own. Quite the contrary, the human recipient must accept and work with the grace offered for it to have an effect.  One must believe and be willing to accept and work with the gift.  Here again, we see the patience of God whereby he never tramples on our own free will.

A remarkable thing happens when a person works with the grace afforded by the Eucharist, which is happening in real time. After the resurrection, when Jesus appeared before his disciples, he said to them, “Peace be with you.”  The peace offered to his Apostles is provided to all who receive him through communion. This is often a forgotten effect of the Eucharist. Faithful people are not saved from the pains of an earthly life, though some remain peaceful amid many trials.  The peace they live is the peace of Christ working within them. If people need one thing, it is to be peaceful, which can only come about by communing with Jesus in the Eucharist reverently and regularly.  

As recipients of the Body and Blood of Jesus, there is yet another gift so grand that only through reception can we be assured. Jesus tells his disciples, “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.”

By the union of our lives and Jesus through the Eucharist, we are already in time and space, living eternal life, although not in its fullness. This means we are already basking in eternity while still living on earth. There is no greater solace than to know the existential question of our life has been answered. From this perspective, the gift of Christ’s peace becomes more recognizable.

Receiving the body given up for us and the blood shed for us is to mimic Jesus’ self-giving. Being fed sacred food strengthens us to live holy lives devoted to God and one another. Being nourished by the one who laid down his life for us prepares us to sacrifice for the Kingdom.

What an opportunity and gift to be in communion with the one we adore.