THE SACRAMENT OF ETERNAL COMMUNION

SOLEMNITY OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST

Gen 14:18-20; Ps 110:1-4; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Lk 9:11-17

Our Communion in the Body of Christ

It is most fitting that the Church celebrates this Most Holy Sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus after the celebration of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, for in this august Sacrament, we celebrate our consecration in Jesus Christ to the Blessed Trinity. In the communion of the body of Jesus Christ, all the faithful are united in the one Spirit to mirror the communion of the Holy Trinity. The Sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus Christ is a symbol of the consecration of the Son of Man to the will of the heavenly Father. It is in that consecration that the Son of Man becomes our bread of eternal life. The consecration, as we hinted in yesterday’s reflection, is the meaning of religion and the worship of God. We see this as the idea the first reading from Genesis presents to us for meditation. The mysterious priest, Melchizedek, offers bread in thanksgiving to God, through which he blesses Abraham and God. “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 handing over your enemies to you.’” He offered bread and wine to consecrate Abram to God’s will and as a representation of that consecration, which is the cause of Abram’s victory over his enemies. The offering is also a thanksgiving to God, who called Abram for that purpose.

Abraham stands for all who are to receive the vocation to faith in God; thus, God called him the father of all the faithful or the father of nations. The bread and wine represent the pure fruit of the earth we offer to God in thanksgiving and for the gift of redemption. They represent the humanity of our Lord, which is the unblemished Lamb for sacrifice. Just as the bread and wine are taken from the fruits of the earth and processed by human hands into bread and wine men eat, bringing nourishment and joy to men, the humanity of our Lord is taken from our human nature and purified by the grace of the Eternal Word, processed by human hands in his passion and death into pure spiritual bread and wine and given to the faithful for the nourishment of their spiritual life and wellbeing. The humanity of Jesus Christ is the bread and wine of human salvation. To show that his passion and death constitute the processing of the fruits of the earth into spiritual bread and wine for our spiritual nourishment, the Church considers the Eucharist as the sacramental representation of his paschal mysteries. Saint Paul speaks of the living tradition which nourishes the Church, “that on the same night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me.’ In the same way, he took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.’”

Human hands processed the fruits of the earth into bread and wine suitable for our consumption, but the nutrients therein that nourish our bodies are works of God’s creation. The same applies to the humanity of our Lord; human hands crucified him, made his body our spiritual bread, and poured out his blood for our spiritual consumption, but the spiritual nourishment therein is the work of God’s Eternal Word. As we eat and become what we eat by the heavenly nourishment contained in the words of our Lord, our bodies also become fruits of the earth that God will use men to process into bread and wine for the spiritual nourishment of the faithful. “Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death.” So, the Eucharist is a thanksgiving to God for consecrating his Son for our salvation. The mystery therein is that the Son of Man is a sweet sacrifice unto God by his total submission to the will of the Father and a spiritual nourishment for us by loving us till death. By the same love he showed to us, he made us worthy to receive the Holy Spirit of consecration. The Holy Eucharist contains the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

The mystery of the Holy Trinity present in the Sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord is efficacious in the correlation between its power of nourishment and consecration at the same time. The Holy Eucharist nourishes because it embodies the will of the Father contained in the Eternal Word, present in the Most Holy Sacrament. The Eucharist also consecrates us because, in the reality of the Sacrament, we share the life and love of the Son of God. The life is the Son, and the love is the Holy Spirit. “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 remaining were collected, they filled twelve baskets.” We see the nourishment in his feeding the crowd and the consecration in his unwillingness to send them away from his presence. Just as Abraham’s life and fate were bound together in the life and priestly consecration of Melchizedek, who offered bread and wine to God for him, in the same way, our lives are one with the Son of Man who offered bread and wine for our salvation; that is, victory over our enemies. It is in this sense that the Eucharist is the Sacrament of the Church, the body of Jesus Christ. Our Eucharistic celebration is a Trinitarian celebration; let us celebrate this solemn feast in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray: O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption. Who lives and reign with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.