Corpus Christi- The Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ
Last week I referred to the signs and symbols we adopt as human beings, we adopt expressing for our own beneft and communicating to others meaning in life. The Mystery we celebrate today would have been beyond our means to adopt or comprehend and even now challenges the limits of human comprehension. The bread and wine taken into Our Lord’s at the Last Supper, and then into the hands of his disciples in the full power of the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost make use of sign and symbol, but are so much more than that!
It is true that the elements and language of the earliest Church draw meaning and direction from the Old Testament experience of covenant and meal and sacrifce. But Jesus, and the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, take those quite simply as a starting place, as a primer for what it will mean to see in the bread blessed and broken the actual Body of Our Lord submitted to the whip, the crown of thorns, the nails and cross for our salvation. The word and action of Eucharist over the chalice of wine will afford us a true encounter with the Blood poured out for our salvation.
In the wheat ground into four to be used in the baking of bread, and in the grapes gathered and crushed to provide the wine we bless and share, we can see ourselves gathered however life has prepared us, or beaten us down, to become a living Sacrifce of Praise, gathered not only by but into the Living Body of Christ. Just as surely as this Feast is of and about Our Lord, it is about us – whom the Lord calls to become what we receive!
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A wonderful and wonderfully blessed Father’s Day to all!!!