Corpus Christi - Year C

“Do this in remembrance of me”.  With these words (2nd reading, 1Cor. 11:23-26) and the gift of himself – body and blood in the form of bread and wine – Jesus left another means (besides the Paraclete) by which he would remain always present to his own.  He gave himself as real food and real drink, and just as food is a biological necessity for life, so the body and blood of Jesus have become forever necessary for our participation in the life of God and life of the believing community.

In his teachings, Jesus often imaged the kingdom or reign of God in terms of meals.  Recall the parables of the wedding feast (Mt 22:1-14; Lk.14:15-24), the ten virgins (Mt. 25:1-13), the faithful servants (Lk. 12:35-48), the locked door (Lk. 13:22-30), the lost son (Lk. 15:11-32) the rich man and Lazarus (Lk. 16:19-31) and the servant (Lk. 17:7-10).  All these anticipated the special meals and the gift of himself as Eucharist that we remember and celebrate today.  After breaking bread that night with his friends and after being broken in death risen Jesus appeared to his followers amid an ambience of meal sharing.  Recall the longer ending of Mark (16:14-18), wherein Jesus is featured as appearing to the eleven while they are eating.  Recall, as well, the Emmaus sharing (Lk. 24:13-35), the meal of baked fish in Jerusalem (Lk. 24:36-49) and the grilled breakfast by the sea of Tiberias  (Jn. 21:1-13).

Six times within the course of the four Gospels, the evangelists tell us of the open-air meal Jesus provided for the multitudes.  Today’s Gospel offers the praying assembly the Lucan version of this meal and renews the challenge of Jesus to his first disciples, “Why do you not give them something to eat yourselves?”  As this question is asked again in our hearing, it reminds all who are fed by Jesus’ most-holy body and blood that the satisfaction of our spiritual and physical hungers by Jesus prepares us and makes us responsible for seeking out, serving and satisfying the hungers of others… as he did.  In order to do this we must be willing to return again and again to this holy place where food for sinners is freely given.  This holy food, this Eucharist, is not a food we merit.  We do not have to become worthy before we share it.  Rather, this is a food that makes us worthy, a food that tells us with every taste that God is good, that Jesus loves us beyond all telling and even more importantly, that Jesus remains forever present in our eating and sharing.