The Body and Blood of Christ

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June 3, 2018

Exodus 24:3-8, Psalm 116; Hebrews 9:11-15; Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

Last week we celebrated the model of unity God brings us in the Trinity. As God is one, we are to strive for unity among ourselves. Today, we celebrate the Body and Blood of Jesus, a physical way that brings about our unity. It is amazing that the Trinitarian God will take some radical actions to keep us close for our own benefit. God has found a tangible ordinary way of keeping God’s self rooted in our actions.

I find it helpful to remind myself that God cares for us tenderly just as a parent does. God never stops noticing us, paying attention to those times we feel disconnected and uncertain, always wanting to bring us back to our place of safety and comfort. Parents always notice when we are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, and they give us what we need. God does the same. God sees us, not through eyes or the mind, but through God’s heart. God knows when to feed us, which is often, and today we celebrate the never-ending meal that keeps us close to God’s life within us.

Through his Body and Blood, Christ makes it possible that his life is united with ours. We became what we eat, and we are transformed by it, and the heavenly food we consume raises our mind, body, and spirit closer to God. It helps us realize we are never alone and that we have plenty of heavenly assistance to meet life’s demands. God’s presence means that when we get a cancer diagnosis, God is with us to understand. Christ is present in our aging and our approach to death, when we get dementia, when we lose a loved one, or we suffer pain from betrayals, estrangement, and lack of reconciliation. Our job is to return to the Eucharist and to open our hearts and understanding to Christ’s words to us. When Christ is that close, we might be hurt or disappointed or afraid, but his presence will keep us from defeat and despair.

To be open to Christ means that we have to be open to others. We cannot say we are open to Christ to whom we speak in private and then be private and reserved to others. We might have many impulses to say withdrawn and protected: because we don’t think others care about us or that we matter enough, that we are O.K. on our own, that we have been burned to many times, or that we are strong enough to do it on our own. These thoughts will never lead us to places of grace. We have to go against our instincts. When we feel unsafe and protective, we might need to be weak enough to reach out and gives someone else a chance. When we want to avoid groups, it is time to expand our social circles. When we feel the need to be private, it is the time to reveal something deeper to our friends. We cannot go it alone. We need to depend upon others. And that is the point of this feast.

Feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ is communal. Christ not only becomes one with us; we become related to one another. When we worship, we cease to be only an individual; we become one body, the family of Christ, with many brothers and sisters, and he asks us to do something special once we have given thanks. He asks us to pass on what we have been given. Christ feeds us, and because we carry about his body within us, we feed others and continue his mission of unity. We share. We give away the one we love. We continue to reach out because Christ extends his arms in welcome to others. Because of our actions, his prayer becomes answer, “That we may all be one.”

Scripture for Daily Mass

First Reading: 

Monday: (2 Peter 1) make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love.

Tuesday: (2 Peter 3) Be on your guard not to be led into the error of the unprincipled and to fall from your own stability. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Wednesday: (2 Timothy 1) I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.

Thursday: (2 Timothy 2) If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us. If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

Friday (Hosea 11) When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer.

Saturday (2 Timothy 4) I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.

Gospel: 

Monday: (Mark 12) The tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, put the tenants to death, and give the vineyard to others.

Tuesday: (Mark 12) Some Pharisees and Herodians were sent to Jesus to ensnare him in his speech. You do not regard a person's status but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?

Wednesday (Mark 12) Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone's brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.

Thursday (Mark 12) "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Friday (Ephesians 3) To me this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for all what is the plan of the mystery hidden from ages past in God.

Saturday (Luke 2) Each year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom.

Saints of the Week

June 3: Charles Lwanga and 22 companion martyrs from Uganda (18660-1886) felt the wrath of King Mwanga after Lwanga and the White Fathers (Missionaries of Africa) censured him for his cruelty and immorality. The King determined to rid his kingdom of Christians. He persecuted over 100 Christians, but upon their death new converts joined the church.

June 5: Boniface, bishop and martyr (675-754), was born in England and raised in a Benedictine monastery. He became a good preacher and was sent to the northern Netherlands as a missionary. Pope Gregory gave him the name Boniface with an edict to preach to non-Christians. We was made a bishop in Germany and gained many converts when he cut down the famed Oak of Thor and garnered no bad fortune by the Norse gods. Many years later he was killed by non-Christians when he was preparing to confirm many converts. The church referred to him as the "Apostle of Germany."

June 6: Norbert, bishop (1080-1134), a German, became a priest after a near-death experience. He became an itinerant preacher in northern France and established a community founded on strict asceticism. They became the Norbertines and defended the rights of the church against secular authorities.

June 9: Ephrem, deacon and doctor (306-373), was born in the area that is now Iraq. He was ordained a deacon and refused priestly ordination. After Persians conquered his home town, Ephrem lived in seclusion where he wrote scriptural commentaries and hymns. He was the first to introduce hymns into public worship.

June 9: Joseph de Anchieta, S.J., priest (1534-1597), was from the Canary Islands and became a leading missionary to Brazil. He was one of the founders of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero. He is considered the first Brazilian writer and is regarded as a considerate evangelizer of the native Brazilian population. Alongside the Jesuit Manuel de Nobrega, he created stable colonial establishments in the new country.

This Week in Jesuit History

·      Jun 3, 1559. A residence at Frascati, outside of Rome, was purchased for the fathers and brothers of the Roman College.

·      Jun 4, 1667. The death in Rome of Cardinal Sforza Pallavicini, a man of great knowledge and humility. While he was Prefect of Studies of the Roman College he wrote his great work, The History of the Council of Trent.

·      Jun 5, 1546. Paul III, in the document Exponi Nobis, empowered the Society to admit coadjutors, both spiritual and temporal.

·      Jun 6, 1610. At the funeral of Henry IV in Paris, two priests preaching in the Churches of St Eustace and St Gervase denounced the Jesuits as accomplices in his death. This was due primarily to the book De Rege of Father Mariana.

·      Jun 7, 1556. Peter Canisius becomes the first provincial superior of the newly constituted Province of Upper Germany.

·      Jun 8, 1889. Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins died at the age of 44 in Dublin. His final words were "I am so happy, so happy." He wrote, "I wish that my pieces could at some time become known but in some spontaneous way ... and without my forcing."

·      Jun 9, 1597. The death of Blessed Jose de Ancieta, Brazil's most famous missionary and the founder of the cities of Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro.