Corpus Christi (C)
(Genesis 14:18-20; 1 Corinthians 11:
23-26; Luke 9:11-17)
In our
first reading from the book of Genesis we heard that Melchizedek -- the
mysterious priest-king of Salem whom the Psalmist (Ps. 110) also refers to as a priest forever, and whose name means
King of righteousness -- came to meet Abram (to become Abraham) and his men
returning victorious from battle against the former regional overlord of the
land. Abram and his 300 strong force of
warriors were exhausted after the battle, and Melchizedek arrived to praise the
victory, bless the victors, and refresh them with bread and wine.
Here at
Holy Mass we, who have been fighting to do God’s Gospel will, praise His glory,
and serve our neighbour, are met by Jesus on this His day, offering Himself to
us under the species of bread and wine.
In line with Melchizedek’s congratulations, blessing and refreshment,
for victorious Abram and his army of old, Jesus wills to show Himself with the
utmost clarity as our great Reward
and most loving Saviour, for under
the likeness of Bread and Wine He offers Himself directly as our Food for
Heavenly Life; and as the One Lifted Up heavenwards, originally on
the Cross and now by the celebrating priest at Mass:
When I am lifted up from the earth I will
draw everyone to Myself (John 12:32),
where
Bread and Wine though One are symbolically separated that we might recognise
and appreciate that the spiritual joy and refreshment His Food and Drink now
offers us, cost Him so very dearly Whose Blood once dripped agonizingly down on the earth for love of us.
Let us
just stop here for a moment and wonder at the wisdom and the beauty of our
God! Our psalm reading today -- based on
ancient traditions going back perhaps a thousand and more years before it was
finally composed some 400 years before Jesus – puts Melchizedek before us as a
King of Righteousness, a Priest of God Most High, coming to bless and refresh
the battle-weary Abram and his exhausted men.
Since Abraham is our father in faith, as St. Paul tells us and as we say
in the canon of the Mass, who cannot recognize that here Melchizedek
foreshadows Jesus? Jesus once took upon
His very own shoulders our load of sin and death and, by rising from the dead,
destroyed Satan’s dominion and power over us, before ascending to heaven in His
now glorious Body of human flesh and blood and thereby opening up heavens
portals to human kind once more.
Now,
Jesus comes to us offering us a share in His victory through our faithful
partaking in His gift of Eucharistic Bread and Wine become the sacrament of His
own most holy and living (and therefore One) Body and precious Blood, the only
food fit for the spiritual refreshment and eternal nourishment of all, who,
like Abraham our father in faith, are answering God's call to journey onwards
and upwards with and in Jesus towards the heavenly homeland He has promised us.
People of
God, my brothers and sisters in Christ, here we have a truly glorious example
of God’s all-foreseeing wisdom and
sublime providence; enough surely to encourage us to lovingly trust ourselves
unreservedly to His great goodness, and with whole-hearted gratitude to sing
life-long praise to His most holy Name!
Next we are told that:
Melchizedek
blessed Abram, with these words: "Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed
be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand".
With such
words we have some indication of the nature and purpose of our Eucharist, and
we are helped in such an appreciation by taking note of the difference between
Jesus’ fulfilment and that which Melchizedek had originally foreshadowed. Melchizedek was, we are told, a priest of God
most High; a very mysterious figure indeed, but one who could not fail to do
what all priests of ancient times were appointed and expected to do: bring
God’s blessing down upon mankind in need.
Such priests were also channels for ascending gifts of praise and
sacrifice to God from men … though those gifts being offered up were not always
expressions of pure praise and heart-felt thanksgiving, many, indeed probably
most, being made simply to facilitate the bestowal of further hoped-for
blessings from God.
When the
time of fulfilment came, none could have imagined that the ultimate Priest of
God most High would be His very own Son, made man. Whereas Melchizedek had been a merely
functional link between God and man, Jesus, on the other hand, is a supremely
intimate Personal link uniting God and man in His very Self; and the reciprocal
love between Jesus and His Father would always, and in everything, be the
originating source, definitive model, and eternal fulfilment of every blessing
received from God and every word of thanksgiving or act of gratitude offered by
men.
Such is
the Christian fulfilment of the original prophetic words of Melchizedek:
Glory to God in the Highest and on earth
peace to people of good will;
the only
full and authentic appreciation and expression of Jesus' purpose in His
Eucharistic presence: to give glory to His Father by bestowing – in Himself and
through His Spirit -- blessing and salvation upon the disciples given Him by
His Father.
Therefore,
as disciples of Jesus, it is our first duty on receiving Holy Communion to join
with Jesus in giving praise and glory to God the Father Who, through the death
and resurrection of His most-beloved and only-begotten Son, has saved us from
death’s thraldom, and wills to protect and preserve us from the
ever-threatening power and poisonous presence of sin in our lives through our
Eucharistic companionship with His Son and by His Eucharistic Gift of the Holy
Spirit:
If, by
the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For you have received the Spirit of adoption
through Whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!”
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children
of God, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ if we suffer with Him that we
may also be glorified with Him.
(Romans 8:13-17)
Then, as
regards Jesus' second purpose for our reception of Holy Communion, ‘peace to
people of good will’, we must bear in mind the teaching of St. Paul:
Those who
have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith;
(God)
redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the
Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of
the Spirit. (Galatians 3: 9, 14)
Notice
that teaching of St. Paul, People of God: though reception of the Eucharist
bears fruit on the basis of our loving and obedient faith, nevertheless, Jesus'
purpose only comes to its fulfilment through our whole-hearted, co-operating, faith.
Jesus
provides food for His People through the unfailing faith of His immaculate Spouse,
Mother Church; but His demand for our personal and individual contribution
still remains, and the contribution each of us has to bring to the Eucharistic
Table is our own faith in Jesus and
our gift-of-self to Jesus and His
continuing work. That is a faith
not merely to be presumed in adults but to be repeatedly, actively, renewed and
deepened, if the food He gives us is to be personally digested and become
spiritually fruitful in our lives.
God has
redeemed us through Christ Jesus; from Whom, by faith and through the
Eucharist, we receive His promise of the Spirit Who will guide Mother Church
into all truth, and form all of us, her children, into an abiding and
ever-closer oneness with, and ever-surer likeness to, Jesus our Lord and
Saviour, for the glory of the Father.
However, we too often think of ‘being one with Jesus’ in an exclusive
sense: extending our individual commitment to Him in all
situations; intensifying our personal aspirations towards, and
deepening our personal love for, Him at all times. But there is still more required, because
Jesus prayed repeatedly and most explicitly that we should all enter into a true oneness-of-disciples, into the Church
His Body, the fullness and crowning glory of which He Himself is, as its
Head. Only as living and mutually co-operating members in the oneness, in the wholeness which is His
living and therefore active Body,
can we become truly, individually and collectively, one with, like ‘unto’,
Jesus.
I do not
ask for these only but for those who will believe in Me through their word,
that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that
they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that You have sent
Me. The glory that You have given Me I
have given to them, that they may be one even as We are One, I in them and You
in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You
sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me.
(John 17:20-23)
Our
awareness of belonging to, and being in, the Church, one with our Catholic
and Christian brothers and sisters (for they are ‘family’ – as St. Paul’s
says – to us) all over the world, should occupy a most serious part of, and be
given most serious expression in, our Catholic living, as many people from very
different backgrounds rightly show us.
How often do you hear of those who have received blessings of all sorts
committing themselves to great personal efforts to show their gratitude for
what they have received? Why should
terrorists, fanatics and radicals, be the only ones to claim bonds with
brethren suffering the world over? Have not we Catholics and Christians,
thousands indeed millions of co-members of the Body of Christ suffering
deprivation and want, trials and persecutions, because of their – and our – faith?
On
receiving Holy Communion, therefore, first of all be most eager and ready to
give sincere thanks, glory, praise and honour, to our heavenly Father.
Then,
renewing our faith in Jesus’ presence and the Father’s goodness, welcome the
Spirit Whom Jesus bestows; for though Jesus' own Eucharistic Presence in us
passes quickly, He wills, however, to bestow His abiding and active Spirit to
remain with us in all the circumstances of our subsequent life. Welcome, therefore, open your heart to, both
Jesus and His Gift; and pray that the Spirit may rule in your personal and
public life so that you may be radically re-formed in the likeness of Jesus
for the glory of the Father in heaven.
Finally,
never forget Mother Church. As we
heard in the Gospel reading:
(Jesus)
gave (what He had blessed) to the disciples to set before the people.
They all ate and were satisfied.
It is
still the same today: we are satisfied with heavenly food from the table prepared
by Mother Church. The Food is, indeed,
from Jesus, but It is given and presented to us, as Jesus willed and
established, through the priests of His Church.
Jesus has promised that He will never forget His Church; and so,
although children here on earth do easily and all too frequently forget to give
thanks to and for those nearest and dearest to them, we who, as children of
Mother Church, are disciples of Jesus aspiring to become true children of the
heavenly Father, must never fail to thank God for Mother Church, and to beseech
His continued blessing on her and on her world-wide family, whenever we receive
God’s food from her table at this, our God-given Eucharist sacrifice.
