We are the Eucharist. The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ Sunday 2020

   We are the Eucharist.

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ Sunday 2020

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June 14, 2020

Exodus 34:4-9; Daniel 3; 2 Corinthians 13:1-13; John 3:16-18

The power of the Eucharist has been evident during these past months when the faithful parishioners were unable to sacramentally receive the Eucharist. People tuned into Zoom sessions and televised masses but it was not the same as receiving the Body and Blood of Christ at mass. People were hungry for communion with God and others. The sense of relief and connection that one finds when one receives what God offers has been incredible.

In the first reading, Moses reminded the people that God always provided for them, even when they did not realize what was in front of them. The unfamiliar manna filled their bellies and water was drawn mysteriously from a rock to show that God would help them carry on, though in unanticipated ways. First Corinthians hearkens back to the Last Supper, but Paul shows us that, because of our participation in the meal, we are inextricably in communion with one another. Surprisingly, the Gospel does not focus upon the Last Supper, the moment we received the Eucharist, but it comes from the Bread of Life discourse in the Fourth Gospel.

The Gospel passage presents Jesus in front of a Jewish audience who refuses to believe in him. They are curious about who he is and what he does, but they cannot accept his claim that one has to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to obtain eternal life. They want eternal life, but they cannot think about what that means. They are offended by his cannibalistic ideas as Jesus plainly says that his flesh is real food and his blood real drink, but it is also something more, and they cannot see that. It is just like the bread and wine that we partake. It is always bread and wine, but it is something more through the power of our faith and the blessings on God and the Spirit as Jesus relives his last meal. We know this food is real and it is what sustains us each week. Without it, we are just not complete.

We participate in bringing about the Eucharist as much as God does. God brings us together to be with us and to remember the life of Jesus. When we remember something, we bring it back to life. Jesus relives his last moments where he shares his body with us to reveal God’s love, to reveal that God knows and understands human suffering. We offer to God all the cares and concerns of our week, our daily toil and our joys, our happy moments and times of sadness. As we do this, we offer our very selves with the gifts we present. The priest, in a special role, will intercede on your behalf, and is a part of the people, who as a community gather to give thanks. We take everything we have done and all that we are and we offer in to prayer for God to bless and transform, and God does that well. We know that the Eucharist is more than a consecrated host or sacred blood, it is an action of the people. We are a necessary part of the Eucharist. As we offer ourselves with our gifts, God blesses and transforms us, and thus we are sent out into the world to carry God’s word.

We return home and we are changed, in ways perhaps we do not see. We become more generous. We give thanks a bit more. Our hearts hold more suffering better. We are more patient, merciful, and understanding, just as God is with us. We have become like Christ, and we are the power, a part of the Eucharist, sent by God, that changes the world.

Scripture for Daily Mass

First Reading:

Monday: (1 Kings 21) Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel next to the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria. Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard to be my vegetable garden, since it is close by, next to my house. I will give you a better vineyard in exchange, or, if you prefer, I will give you its value in money.”

Tuesday: (1 Kings 21) After the death of Naboth the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite: “Start down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He will be in the vineyard of Naboth, of which he has come to take possession. This is what you shall tell him, ‘The LORD says: After murdering, do you also take possession?

Wednesday: (2 Kings 2) When the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, he and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here; the LORD has sent me on to the Jordan.” “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you,” Elisha replied.

Thursday: (Sirach 48) Like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijah whose words were as a flaming furnace. Their staff of bread he shattered, in his zeal he reduced them to straits; By the Lord’s word he shut up the heavens and three times brought down fire.

Friday (Deuteronomy 7) Moses said to the people: "You are a people sacred to the LORD, your God; he has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people peculiarly his own. It was not because you are the largest of all nations that the LORD set his heart on you and chose you, for you are really the smallest of all nations. It was because the LORD loved you.

Saturday (2 Chronicles 24) After the death of Jehoiada, the princes of Judah came and paid homage to King Joash, and the king then listened to them. They forsook the temple of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and began to serve the sacred poles and the idols; and because of this crime of theirs, wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem.

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 5) “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.

Tuesday: (Matthew 5) “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.

Wednesday (Matthew 6) Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others.

Thursday (Matthew 6) In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Friday (Matthew 11) I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father.

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. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.

Saints of the Week

Friday: The Sacred Heart of Jesus is set on the Friday following Corpus Christi. The heart of Jesus is adored as a symbol of divine, spiritual, and human love. Its devotion grew during the Middle Ages and was transformed in the 17th century when Mary Margaret Alocoque and her Jesuit spiritual director, Claude La Colombiere, reinvigorated the devotion.

Saturday: The Immaculate Heart of Mary began as a devotion in the 17th century. In 1944, the feast was extended to the Western Church. Her heart signifies her sanctity and love as the Mother of God.

June 19: Romuald, abbot (950-1027), was born into a family of dukes from Ravenna and became known for founding the Camaldolese Benedictine order that combined the solitary life of hermits into a monastic community life. He founded other hermitages and monasteries throughout Italy.

This Week in Jesuit History

·      Jun 14, 1596. By his brief Romanus Pontifex, Pope Clement VIII forbade to members of the Society of Jesus the use or privilege of the Bulla Cruciata as to the choice of confessors and the obtaining of absolution from reserved cases.

·      Jun 15, 1871. P W Couzins, a female law student, graduated from Saint Louis University Law School, the first law school in the country to admit women.

·      Jun 16, 1675. St Margaret Mary Alacoque received her great revelation about devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

·      Jun 17, 1900. The martyrdom at Wuyi, China, of Blesseds Modeste Andlauer and Remy Asore, slain during the Boxer Rebellion.

·      Jun 18, 1804. Fr. John Roothan, a future general of the Society, left his native Holland at the age of seventeen to join the Society in White Russia.

·      Jun 19, 1558. Fr. Lainez, the Vicar General, summoned the opening of the First General Congregation, nearly two years after the death of Ignatius. Some trouble arose from the fact that Fr. Bobadilla thought himself entitled to some share in the governance. Pope Paul IV ordered that the Institute of the Society should be strictly adhered to.

·      Jun 20, 1626. The martyrdom in Nagasaki, Japan, of Blesseds Francis Pacheco, John Baptist Zola, Vincent Caun, Balthasar De Torres, Michael Tozo, Gaspar Sadamatzu, John Kinsaco, Paul Xinsuki, and Peter Rinscei.