Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (A)

Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a
Ps 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20
1 Cor 10:16-17
Jn 6:51-58

This Sunday we celebrate the Sacrament of the Eucharist and why we believe it is truly and physically the presence of Jesus.

We're reminded in the first reading that God our Father always provides the food and drink that we need for survival in the desert days of life's hardships. What he did for the Israelites, he does for us today in whatever ways we experience hot trials and dry faith. He provides what we need by giving us the True Presence of Christ, who comes to us not only in the Eucharist but also in his Holy Spirit, who lives within us because of our baptisms, to guide us and nourish our spiritual growth.

The Gospel passage tells us that the Eucharistic food and drink are truly Jesus himself, not a mere symbol of his love. Oh-my oh-my, how we need THIS food and drink to survive the serpents and scorpions and the parched and waterless ground of our desert experiences! Jesus literally fills us and quenches our thirsts. As we consume him, he consumes us. As we draw him into us, he draws us into himself. In this unity, we walk through our trials with all that we need for success.

The second reading tells us that the Eucharist increases our unity with Christ and with Christ's body on earth, the church community, through which he provides the various resources that we need. In this unity — when it's activated as it should be — no one lacks anything good because all necessary goods are shared. And ultimately in this unity, as Jesus said in the Gospel, we're assured of eternal life in heaven, where all needs are met perfectly and completely.

Questions for Personal Reflection:

What are the "serpents and scorpions" in your life right now? In what ways do you feel parched, thirsty to the point of desperation? During Mass, imagine that you're walking through a desert to receive from Jesus what you need. How does it feel to approach Jesus this way?

Questions for Community Faith Sharing:

How has the Eucharist helped you through a difficult time? Why did it make a difference? I kiss the Host before placing it in my mouth; what do you do that helps make the presence of Christ in the Eucharist more real for your needs?

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Hello, I’m Franciscan Father Greg Friedman with the "Sunday Soundbite" for the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.

As a friar, I've had the privilege to go on pilgrimage. Traveling to a holy place with other pilgrims is an experience of getting to know God, self and others.

An important part of pilgrimage, believe it or not, is the food. You may smile, wondering what pilgrimage meals have to do with spirituality. Well, I enjoyed some of my best spiritual experiences around the table with my fellow pilgrims. The meals on pilgrimage in Assisi, Italy, were, of course, wonderful! But my memory of those meals always includes the wonderful people with whom I shared the food. It nourished both body and spirit.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, and our first reading takes us into the desert, as God's people are completing their pilgrimage to the Promised Land. Moses recalls for them how they depended for forty years on the food God provided. They survived as free people, liberated from slavery, thanks to the manna in the desert, and the other food from God.

In the Gospel, Jesus tells the crowds that he himself will be true food and drink for them—a food that will surpass the manna in the desert. Jesus, the living bread, will give them eternal life. It is the ultimate pilgrimage meal, and we share it each Sunday at Eucharist.

Scripture:

•…who guided you through the vast and terrible desert with its seraph serpents and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground; who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock and fed you in the desert with manna, (Deuteronomy 8:15,16)

•…with the best of wheat he fills you. (Psalm 147:14)

•The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16)

•…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. (John 6:53)

•For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. (John 6:55)

Reflection:

•Have you journeyed through the desert of hard times or spiritual despair? Was God with you? Was a community with you?

•Do you journey alone or with a community?

•Is your community limited to those who are living now?

•Will you starve without the Lord’s presence in the Eucharist?

•Is the Eucharist an individual or community celebration?

We tend to think of individual human beings as unconnected until they choose to become connected either because it is useful or because of some natural attraction. But there is an important biblical alternative to this interpretation, in many ways countercultural. We are all children of the same God, with the same earth as our common home. We are inter-related and interdependent. We have no choice about whether we live in relationships. Our only choices are whether we tell the truth about our social existence and whether we live in ways that redeem the relational web that is always and forever the matrix of our becoming.

It (Body of Christ) is a way of being in the world with one another and with Christ because of who God is. The body of Jesus in life, the Body of Christ in the Easter event, the Body of Christ who we are, the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, and the Body of Christ that we become more fully in the resurrection of the body—all these belong together in Body’s (of Christ) total meaning.