By the Very Rev Fr Vincent Glynn EV
In response to an initiative expressed by Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB in his Pastoral Letter of April 2023, and encouraged by Pope Francis in his Apostolic Letter Desiderio Desideravi, the Archdiocese of Perth has been taking part in a journey of Liturgical Formation and Renewal.
Part of this formation was to focus on and renew our belief in Christ present in the Eucharist, especially our belief in the Real Presence.
A number of parishes have participated in Train the Trainer sessions given by the Centre for Liturgy.
Those trained will go back to their parish communities and form faith formation groups to meet and renew at a local parish level this central belief of our Catholic faith. As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, in this period of liturgical formation, Episcopal Vicar, Education and Faith Formation, the Very Rev Fr Vincent Glynn offers a reflection based on the Word of God proclaimed for Year A.
Each year the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ or as it is known in Latin, Corpus Christi Sunday.
Corpus Christi Sunday always evokes in me certain childhood memories and may also do the same for many of you participating in and celebrating this solemnity in your parish community.
I am transported back to my days as a child attending at Aquinas College for a celebration where the Blessed Sacrament was placed in a monstrance and was carried around in procession with great pomp and ceremony.
Often with children in their first communion clothes throwing rose petals onto the ground in much the same way that page boys and girls sometimes do at weddings today.
The procession was also accompanied by the singing of hymns that we all knew and the smell of incense.
It concluded with the Rite of Benediction where all present were blessed by the eucharistic presence of Jesus Christ.
This occasion was also one of the few times that we gathered as Catholics from all the parishes around the Archdiocese with our Archbishop.
For me and I am sure for all those attending this celebration it was a reminder that we were participating in something sacred. It was something out of the ordinary. We were in fact acknowledging a central belief of the Church handed down to us throughout the centuries. A belief that Christ was present.
What brought us together was not only our common faith, shared in and through Baptism, but also our common identity, understanding and belief as Catholics in the Eucharistic presence of Christ expressed through the sacramental sign of bread.
At this celebration we professed our belief that Christ is truly present under the appearance of bread but also truly present in the Church, the people gathered. As St Paul reminds us in the second reading for this solemnity, “…though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all share in this one loaf.” (1Cor 10:17)
Gathered as Church, we become what we believe. Gathered as Church, whether in our parish community, or by computers and smart televisions for those housebound today, we become the body of Christ, a sign to the world around us of Christ present.
The Gospel this weekend comes from the Gospel of Saint John, Chapter 6. This chapter is located in that part of John’s Gospel known as the Book of Signs. Scripture scholars say that Chapter Six of John’s Gospel is more than likely a homily based around the theme ‘GOD GAVE THEM BREAD FROM HEAVEN TO EAT’ and it expresses to us the growing understanding of the eucharistic theology found in the early Church.
Chapter 6 begins with Jesus feeding the 5000 with the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish. (Jn 6:1-15).
This miraculous feeding, points to the sign that Jesus is indeed the prophet who has come into the world and one who can feed and satisfy hunger. But despite this feeding, the people search for Jesus the next day because they are hungry again. Jesus uses this search and their hunger to teach them something more about God and about himself.
He reminds them that while their ancestors wandered in the desert complaining of hunger it was God who provided for them and fed them with Manna. This Manna is described as this bread from Heaven.
As today’s first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy reminds us “God humbled you, God made you feel hunger, God fed you with Manna… to make you understand that man does not live on bread alone.” (Deut 8:3)
But the people are still not satisfied with this explanation, so they ask Jesus ‘What sign can you give us, what food can you give us? Jesus responds to them by stating that He is the Bread of Life, He is the living bread which comes down from Heaven… this is the bread that comes down from Heaven; Not like the bread your ancestors ate: They are dead. (Jn 6:49-50) Jesus clearly teaches that YES God gave them bread from heaven to eat but that the bread sent from heaven today by the Father is not like the Manna of the Old Testament. It is indeed himself… He (Jesus) is the living bread. He (Jesus) is the bread sent from Heaven by the Father, the living bread that when eaten will not just satisfy physical hunger or give life but will satisfy in such way that one is never hungry again and that both gives and leads to eternal life.
He teaches that ‘This living bread is his flesh, given for the life of the world. (Jn 6:51) Given, as we now understand today through his suffering and death on the cross and made available to us through his resurrection. A sacrificial self- giving of his flesh made present, and in which we share each time we celebrate the Mass. Including as we celebrate this Sunday.
Interestingly the Gospel tells us that the Jews begin to argue about what Jesus has to say… they fail to understand what Jesus is teaching as perhaps many do today, and so Jesus, as any good teacher should do, teaches, and explains himself again. But he goes deeper.
In his explanation Jesus teaches to those listening what can only be described as something theologically profound and perhaps even difficult to fully comprehend with our human mind. Jesus states in the Gospel:
“I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you will have no life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life and I shall raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I live in them.” (John 6: 53-57)
This text is often referred to as one of the sources of the key teaching of Jesus and of the early church that we believe and express in theological language today as the REAL PRESENCE. Our belief that the risen Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity is present sacramentally through the appearance of bread and wine and this bread and wine become by the power the Holy Spirit the Body and Blood of Christ. The bread of Life, the Lamb of God.
This real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ is given to us not just to be prayerfully admired and adored, but as real food and real drink to be eaten and shared in a way that Jesus himself comes to live and dwell within us. (Jn 6:56) This intimate sharing or indwelling we believe takes place each time we receive Holy Communion.
We believe as Catholics that each time we gather as Church to celebrate the Mass and we process to receive Holy Communion; The Blessing cup that we bless is a communion (a common-union) with the Blood of Christ, and the bread we break is a communion (a common-union) with the body of Christ. (1Cor 10:16) What a great gift.
We share in the very life of Jesus himself who is food for our journey. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive Christ himself as real food and real drink, that feeds and nourishes us for the journey of life, that feeds and nourishes us for eternal life. In the eating and drinking Jesus enters into communion with us personally, we receive Christ and Christ receives us. We share fully in his life, and he shares in our life. What a treasure!
I encourage you as you process to communion to be mindful of what you are doing. We walk together singing to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, the Risen One. We acknowledge this presence with our reverence and the gesture of bowing our head before receiving communion and by our prayer of thanksgiving on the return to our place in the church.
On this solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, I am very conscious that some of you may be housebound or in hospital and so are not able to share fully in the Body and Blood of Christ in communion. Like the people of the Old Testament and of the Gospel some of you will be feeling this hunger for the bread of life, for Christ himself.
Rather than be despondent, I invite you to turn this hunger into prayer and as a time to grow in a deeper appreciation of what happens in the Mass and who it is that we receive in Holy Communion.
Let us all on the celebration of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, join with the Church in heaven and the Church on earth to proclaim.
O Sacrament most Holy, O Sacrament Divine,
All praise and all thanksgiving,
Be every moment thine.