Feast Of The Body And Blood Of Christ
18 June 2017

 

Before he ascended into heaven Christ promised his disciples – paradoxically: “I will be with you always, till the end of the world.” Christ remains with us above all in the Eucharist – the Mass. The feast of Corpus Christi – the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ – celebrates the ongoing presence of Christ in the Church throughout history. And that is what we celebrate today.
We also have a modern feast to celebrate today, namely Fathers’ Day. Fathers and Mothers Days have become very popular feasts in the modern calendar. Commercial interests ensure that no one is likely to forget them, and as Christians we can only rejoice that the importance of fathers and mothers in our families is recognised and celebrated.
Over the next year as we prepare to celebrate the World Meeting of Families we will be reflecting on the importance of families in Church and Society and the complementary roles of fathers, mothers and children in our families. Today, we thank God for our own parents, and particularly for our fathers, and we acknowledge their love, their care and the contribution they have made in a thousand ways to our lives and our wellbeing.
A week or so ago I conferred the Ministry of Acolyte on the father of a family in one of our parishes. He is preparing to be a deacon in the diocese of Kilmore. As an Acolyte he is officially designated to assist at the altar, distribute Holy Communion and bring Communion to the sick. Acolyte is very much a ministry of the Eucharist. The exhortation in the liturgy for Acolyte recalls a very important statement of the Second Vatican Council which highlights the place of the Eucharist in the life of the Church.
The exhortation and the Council tell us that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Church’s life. That is a quotation from the Second Vatican Council. Jesus makes it very clear in the Gospel today how the Eucharist is the source of the Church’s life. He says:
I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
A little later in this Mass we will repeat the words Jesus said at the Last Supper: “Take this and eat of it, this is my body which is given for you; take this and drink of it, this is the cup of my blood, poured out for you … Do this in memory of me.”
When Christ gave us the Eucharist he gave us himself. He gave his life for us and gave us a share in his life. He continues to give us himself in the Mass. He nourishes his life within us by his word and by his body and blood. The Eucharist is the source of the Christ life in us. We cannot thrive as Christians without it. We go to Mass on Sunday and Holy Days, not because we have to go, but because, as followers of Jesus, we need to go. In the Eucharist we receive the regular transfusions of Christ’s life and grace that we so badly need to help us live our lives in imitation of his love and generosity, his care, compassion and forgiveness.
The Eucharist is not only the source of the Church’s life. It is also the summit of its life. It is not only the origin of the Church’s life, but also its goal and destination. The goal of the Eucharist is not simply to nourish Christ’s life in us as individuals but to unite us, to bring us together as one body. It’s about building us up into a community. That’s why it is called Communion. By eating the body of Christ, we become the Body of Christ. The first reading reminded us:
The blessing cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is a communion with the body of Christ. The fact that there is only one loaf means that, though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one loaf.
The ultimate goal of the Eucharisit is beyond this life. It’s a goal of unity, bringing us all together in one body under Christ as head. This is God’s grand plan of salvation as outlined in St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: “that God would bring everything together under Christ as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth.” That is the summit of the Church’s life. That is the goal we all hope to reach one day – to be united with Christ and with all our brothers and sisters and the angels and saints in the glory of God the Father in heaven. That will be the ultimate Fathers’ Day – God the Father’s Day – that we will celebrate for all eternity.