Whoever Eats My Flesh and Drinks My Blood Remains in Me and I in Him.

06-11-2023Weekly ReflectionFr. Manasseh Iorchir, VC

The early summer liturgical “trifecta” of Pentecost, Holy Trinity, and Corpus Christi that follows the celebration of the Easter Season and provides focus on the three fundamental realities of Christian life: the Church, The Triune Godhead, and the Holy Eucharist is completed this weekend with the celebration of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the joyful celebration of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

The annual celebration of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi gives us the opportunity to adore and expose the content of our belief in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the visible perpetuation of Christ’s presence in His Church. The Holy Eucharist is the true Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, together with His Soul and Divinity, under the appearance of bread and wine.

In the celebration of the Eucharist, God the Father sends His Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine offered by God’s people into the real Body and Blood of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is consumed by believers not only so that He can be within them and so stay with them, but also to nourish them as they journey in this world of pilgrimage

Scripture reveals to us that it has been in the character of God to feed His people. This is why He created all that we would need before making us in His own image and likeness. God had also, at specific times, fed the Patriarchs and the people of Israel whenever they were in need of nourishment. In the First Reading, Moses reminded the people of Israel how God led them out of slavery, watched over them and gave them manna to eat and water from the flinty rock to drink when they were hungry and thirsty. This gave them temporary nourishment. Moses exhorted the people not to forget the Lord when they entered the Promised Land.

In the Gospel passage, Jesus Himself provided the theological basis for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. He declared that He is the Living Bread that comes down from Heaven, anyone who eats His Body and drinks His Blood will be gifted with eternal life, and His flesh is real food and His blood is real drink. What we receive at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist is the true Body of Jesus Christ and those who receive Him in the state of grace are divinely assured of eternal life. This is collaborated by St. Paul in the second reading where he confessed that the cup that we bless is a participation in the Blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is a participation in the Body of Christ, and so we who participate in the one bread and the one cup are and ought to act as one body.

As we celebrate Corpus Christi, the Holy Church exhorts us to reaffirm our belief in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist and to show this unflinching belief by working to keep the Body of Christ as one. May we also seek the essential nourishment for our souls which the Eucharist provides and always approach Christ for this nourishment in the state of grace.

Please be kind and may God bless you.

Fr. Manasseh