”O sacred banquet in which Christ is received, the heart replenished with grace, and the pledge of eternal life bestowed!” As we celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, we are focusing our attention on the sacrament that is source and summit of
our Catholic faith. It is in the Eucharist that Christ, who took flesh
in Mary’s virginal womb, offers Himself to each one of us as the source
of divine life and fountain of grace (CF. Tertio Millennio Adveniente,
55). In the Eucharist we encounter the Risen Lord and are drawn into
communion with the life-creating Trinity.
The Catechism puts it this way: “The Eucharist is the efficacious sign
and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of
the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the
culmination both of God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and of
the worship men offer to Christ and through Him to the Father in the
Holy Spirit” (CCC #1325).
When
we say that the Eucharist is the "source and summit of Christian
spirituality" we mean, that Christian spirituality flows from the
Eucharist as its source, the way light streams from the sun. And that Catholic spirituality is realized in and ordered to the Eucharist as the summit to which all our actions are ultimately directed.
Through the Eucharist God and man are brought together in a bond of
love. Through the Eucharist we are drawn into the life of the Trinity,
who is Love itself. Simultaneously, this deepened love of God leads us
to a greater love of neighbor. The
priest Melchizedek offered bread and wine to celebrate God’s blessing
and the Lamb of God felt pity for the people that followed him into the
wilderness and fed them with bread from heaven.
The one who showed his love for those who followed Him and fed the multitude in the wilderness has become our living bread so that we might come to fullness of life in Him. This Bread is blessed and broken as food for our journey because of God’s loving kindness. Remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus: “God so loved the world that
he gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not
parish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). We ponder the mystery
whereby perishable bread is transformed into Christ’s glorious and life-giving Body by the power of the Holy Spirit.
By entering into communion with Christ’s sacramental Presence, we
corruptible human beings are given a foretaste of future
incorruptibility. “God
is love.” His is not a sentimental, emotional kind of love but the love
of the Father who is the origin of all life, the love of the Son who
dies on the Cross and is raised, the love of the Spirit who renews human
beings and the world. Thinking that God is love does us so much good,
because it teaches us to love, to give ourselves to others as Jesus gave
himself to us and walks with us. Jesus walks beside us on the road
through life” (Pope Francis, Angelus, May 26, 2013)
“O sacred banquet in which Christ is received!” It takes my breath away to think that Jesus Christ who emptied himself of the grandeur that was His as God
and made himself nothing by taking the nature of a slave (Cf. Phil 2:
6-7), emptied bread of its substance to make it His living and
life-giving Body. And then to think, we who enter into communion through
the Bread of Life are filled with the grandeur of God’s only-begotten Son. Through the Eucharist,
Jesus is fulfilling the promise he made to the apostles before his
ascension. ”Behold I am with you always, to the very end of the age”
(Mat. 28:20). The Feast of Corpus Christi reminds us that we need to be present to Him
who has promised to be present to us. In gratitude to Him who gave Himself to us entirely, we should respond by giving ourselves to Him entirely.
Through the celebration of the Eucharist, the re-creation is signified.
Corruptible bread becomes the incorruptible Body of Christ and
individual members of the human race are brought into communion with the
Trinity.
In the celebration of the Eucharist we are given a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy that is celebrated in the New Jerusalem, our heavenly homeland. What we eat becomes part of us; but when we take the Eucharist we become part of Jesus and enter into his life. By the vision of faith, we come to recognize the risen and glorified Lord in the breaking of the bread. Through
our participation in the paschal sacrament we are conformed to Christ.
This bond with Christ sets us on fire with love of all our brothers and
sisters. In order for this bond of love to be established, it is
essential we are aware of what we are doing whenever we gather around
the table of the Lord so as to be actively engaged in the sacred rite
and enriched by its effects. Our daily lives need to reflect the communion we receive and the Eucharist we celebrate. Having partaken of the bread that was blessed and broken, we commissioned to give ourselves, pour out ourselves in the service of others and in the love of God.
--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO
