Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ Read more
Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ
First Reading
Genesis 14,18-20
Melchizedek king of Salem brought bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High. He pronounced this blessing: Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High for putting your enemies into your clutches. And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
Psalmody
Psalm 109
Antiphon
You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
The Lord's revelation to my Master :
'Sit on my right :
your foes I will put beneath your feet.'
The Lord will wield from Zion
your sceptre of power ;
rule in the midst of all your foes.
A prince from the day of your birth
on the holy mountains;
from the womb before the dawn I begot you.
The Lord has sworn an oath he will not change.
'You are a priest for ever,
a priest like Melchizedek of old'
The Master standing at your right hand
will shatter kings in the day of his wrath.
He, the judge of the nations,
will heal high the bodies;
heads shall be shattered far and wide.
He shall drink from the stream by the wayside
and therefore he shall lift up his head.
Second Reading
1 Corinthians 11,23-26
For the tradition I received from the Lord and also handed on to you is that on the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and after he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.' And in the same way, with the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.' Whenever you eat this bread, then, and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.
Reading of the Gospel
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Luke 9,11-17
But the crowds got to know and they went after him. He made them welcome and talked to them about the kingdom of God; and he cured those who were in need of healing. It was late afternoon when the Twelve came up to him and said, 'Send the people away, and they can go to the villages and farms round about to find lodging and food; for we are in a lonely place here.' He replied, 'Give them something to eat yourselves.' But they said, 'We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we are to go ourselves and buy food for all these people.' For there were about five thousand men. But he said to his disciples, 'Get them to sit down in parties of about fifty.' They did so and made them all sit down. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven, and said the blessing over them; then he broke them and handed them to his disciples to distribute among the crowd. They all ate as much as they wanted, and when the scraps left over were collected they filled twelve baskets.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Yesterday I was buried with Christ,
today I rise with you who are risen.
With you I was crucified;
remember me, Lord, in your kingdom.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Homily
With the narration of the Last Supper described by Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, this Sunday's liturgy presents us again with these strong and concrete words, "This is my body," "This is my blood." This is the mystery of a continuous and most particular presence. Jesus is not only actually present in the Eucharist, which alone is an awesome thing, but is present as a "broken" body and as blood "poured out." In this sense, the feast of Corpus Domini is the celebration of a body that is able to manifest its wounds and from whose side pours forth "blood and water," as the apostle John notes.
Even his body is present among us in a manner different from our own bodies: we are attentive to and concerned about our bodies, whereas he is present with a "broken" body. We are bent on defending ourselves, employing every kind of cure and device, whereas he comes among us pouring out all of his blood. This Host continuously contests (in this sense he is a "foreigner") our way of living, our solicitous attention to our well-being, our avoidance of fatigue, and our tendency to flee from every heavy responsibility. In essence, each one of us clings to our savings when it comes to spending for others. The Lord, in this Host, reveals to us a completely different way. Then let the procession of Corpus Domini come! May it traverse our streets, not simply so that it can receive a superficial tribute, but rather so that it may traverse our hearts and render them more similar to Jesus' heart. Just as Paul says, the Lord made himself a nutriment for all people, so that we may all be transformed into one body, the body of Christ, and so that we may have the same thoughts and feelings as Christ.
There is another consideration to make, one that is connected to the Gospel of the multiplication of the loaves. Every day our streets are traversed by processions of Corpus Domini, even if the streets are not decorated and no one is throwing flowers; rather there are those, who strew indifference, if not spew forth insults! These are the processions of the poor, of those who are from our neighbourhood, of those who arrive from afar and of the many who are far from us. All of them are the "body of Christ," and they continue to walk along the streets of our cities and of the world without anyone to care for them. John Chrysostom's warning seems to me particularly decisive, "If you want to honour the body of Christ, do not disdain it when it is nude. Do not honour the Eucharistic Christ with silken vestments, while outside of the church you neglect that other Christ who is naked and afflicted by the cold." Both bodies are the real body of Christ, who is not divided, as long as we do not divide him ourselves.
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
