A reflection for the feast of Corpus Christi
At the core of our Catholic faith is the belief in the real presence of Christ – body, soul, and divinity – in the Eucharistic Bread and Wine. Take this belief out of Catholicism and you have a totally different religion. The sacramental life would be different. Our worship would be different. The prayers we say and the songs we sing would be different. How we move about and conduct ourselves in church would be different. Even church architecture would be different.
As we celebrate the solemnity of Corpus Christi, I would like to reflect on the uniqueness of this belief in the Eucharistic Bread and Wine as a Sacrament of Real Presence. It originates from the original Passover but also surpasses it.
From the Passover to the Last Supper
The first Passover meal was shared by a slave people. The blood of the Passover Lamb over the houses of the Israelites was a sign for the angel of death to spare the slave people (Ex 12:1-13). Later, the Passover was established as a perpetual institution in the Mosaic Law (Ex 1214). Once in the Promised Land, the people would make an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Jesus himself honored the Passover.
But at the Last Supper, which was his last Passover, Jesus single-handedly and dramatically transformed the meaning of the original Passover. Even though the Jewish people were now ruled by the mighty Romans, and Jesus could have very easily compared the Romans to the Egyptians, he made no reference to it at the Last Supper. Rather, Jesus broadened the scope of the Passover to all of humanity. As we heard in the Gospel reading, Jesus said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many (Mk 14:24). By Jesus’ new Passover, not just the Israelites, but humanity would be set from slavery to sin, darkness, and death.
From Family to Community
There is yet another movement between the original Passover and the Last Supper that has large-scale implications for us. The original Passover lamb was shared between a family, or if the family was too small, shared with a neighboring family (Ex 12:4). Over the centuries, the Passover was a family celebration for the Israelites, something akin to Thanksgiving. Even though Thanksgiving is a national holiday, families gather to celebrate it. Scripture tells us that Jesus family made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover.
Jesus departed from this tradition for his last Passover, the Last Supper. Instead of his family, Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples, whom he also called his friends. By doing this, he was not rejecting his family but broadening his family circle. His family and all those who celebrate the Eucharist in the future are brought into the family of Jesus. This way, the entire community of disciples becomes the flesh and blood of Jesus, the family of Jesus.
From Promised Land to Eternity
But the more radical transformation at this new and transformed Passover was that the Jesus replaced himself as the Passover lamb. With this, the sacrificial dimension of the Passover is intensified even though the significance is the same. We see this sacrificial dimension in today’s second reading from Hebrews: “When Christ came as high priest… he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Heb 9:11-12). At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread and said, “This is my body” (Mk 14:22) and then took the wine and said, “This is my blood of the Covenant” (Mk 14:24). Jesus’ offer of his body and blood would be the new Covenant by which believers would enter the New Promised Land – Eternity itself.
If the blood of the original Passover lamb protected the Israelites from the angel of death in the desert, the blood of animals and fidelity to the Covenant would ensure their entry into the Promised Land.
After the resurrection of Jesus, the Christian community’s understanding of the implications of the Last Supper grew deeper. Whereas the new Promised Land is Heaven and Eternity, Jesus’ teaching in the Bread of Life discourse offered a whole new promise. Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51), and again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (Jn 6:53-54).
To summarize, the original Passover which brought liberation to an insignificant slave people was transformed by Jesus at the Last Supper. What Jesus accomplished at the Last Supper is now at the core of our faith.
We believe that the Eucharist is the commemoration of the Last Supper, and that this the perpetual institution that Moses pointed to at that original Passover.
We believe that because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Eucharistic Bread is indeed the Body of Christ broken for the world and the Eucharistic Wine is indeed the Blood of Christ of the New Covenant.
We believe that those who participate in the Body and the Blood of Christ are now the body of Christ – the new global family of Jesus.
We believe that those who partake of the Body and Blood of Christ will never die but move from this life to eternal life.
As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, may our faith in the Real Presence of Christ be strengthened and may it lead us to eternal life. Amen.
Image: By Stefano di Giovanni – http://www.aiwaz.net/gallery/sassetta/gc345, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3941603
Fr. Satish Joseph was ordained in India in 1994 and incardinated into the archdiocese of Cincinnati in 2008. He has a Masters in Communication and Doctorate in Theology from the University of Dayton. He is presently Pastor at Immaculate Conception and St. Helen parishes in Dayton, OH. He is also the founder Ite Missa Est ministries (www.itemissaest.org) and uses social media extensively for evangelization. He is also the founder of MercyPets (www.mercypets.org) — a charitable fund that invites pet-owners to donate a percent of their pet expenses to alleviate child hunger. MercyPets is active in four countries since its founding in December 2017. Apart from serving at the two parishes, he facilitates retreats, seminars and parish missions.
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