OUR MOST HOLY COMMUNION

SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST 

Deut 8:2-3,14-16; Ps 147:12-15,19-20; 1 Cor 10:16-17; Jn 6:51-58

The Sacrament of Holy Communion

Communion is about sharing things in common. Above all, it is about sharing life in common, whereby each person brings his life and shares it with members of the communion. The most sacred thing in our possession is life. It does not belong to any of us, but is entrusted to our care and stewardship. By keeping and nourishing it, we participate in the life of the Giver of life, who is Life essentially. Hence, our creation ipso facto is an invitation and the beginning of communion with God, our Creator. On this basis again, we share in the mystery of God; not only humans, but every creature shares in the mystery of God’s existence and is a testimony of the same existence. The wonder of our participation in God’s existence is expressed by Psalm 139:13-14. “For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are thy works!” In fact, creation is a feast of wonder and praise of God the Creator. We are born into this wonderful communion with bewilderment; that is why we cry at our birth. A pity we gradually lose sight of the wonder of our creation and being, and become blind to God’s presence and the presence of others sharing the communion of being.

Our celebration of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us the opportunity to reflect and give thanks to the Father for the wonderful gift of Communion. The Word is at the centre of the communion of life, both in the original communion of creatures and the renewed communion of the faithful. The original communion of all creation stood in need of renewal when the evil one introduced sin, which formed another communion separate from the original one formed in the Word that brought things into existence. Sin is a communion in disobedience to the word of God. This makes sin a communion of death, a participation in the cup of disobedience served by the son of perdition. This communion in death and darkness causes the blindness of human persons to the original communion of creation in obedience to the word of God. With the corruption of the communion God intended with his creatures, and in a special way, with human persons, God promised to renew the communion through the Woman and her Offspring as the principle. The new component in the renewed communion is hatred for the serpent and its seed—sin or disobedience. God achieved this perfect enmity or hatred by making the Eternal Word the Offspring of the Woman. All who are born of the first man and woman will be renewed by the incorporation of the hatred for the serpent and sin. The incorporation of the hatred makes each of the redeemed a member of the Offspring of the Woman.

We note the typology of this incorporation and the process in the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, when God fed them with manna through the desert. From the type, we understand the incorporation as a process with stages of purification. Moses explains this as follows. “Remember how the Lord your God led you for forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, to test you, and know your inmost heart—whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you, he made you feel hunger, he fed you with manna which neither you nor your fathers had known, to make you understand that man does not live on bread alone but that man lives on everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” The communion of life is based on the Word of God and not on any other thing. Everything and training we receive from the Lord is to this effect, that we may focus on the Word in obedience.

By paying full attention to the Word, we come to a full participation in the communion of life that God offers us through His Word that became flesh and lived among us. His incarnation is to make focusing attention on him very easy and natural. It is in this sense that his life, death, and resurrection constitute our Eucharistic celebration. Our life, worship, and spirituality as Christians are sacramentally presented to us in the Eucharistic celebration and the communion therein. At the same time, God’s holy will, as the source and summit of the communion, is likewise given as our food and drink. Saint Paul captures these saying: “The blessing-cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is a communion with the body of Christ. The fact that there is only one loaf means that, though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one loaf.” The body of Christ, which is what we become by baptism, is dedicated to doing the will of God. The blood of Christ, which is now our blood, is poured out as a mark or representation of this sacrifice or consecration to God’s will. The Real Presence of the Son of God, which embodies the divine will, is our spiritual food and drink and the cause of life and communion for all. This is how we are realised as the Offspring of the Woman.

Concerning the Real Presence, which is the essence of the food and source of communion, the Son of Man declares in the Gospel. “I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” The same Word of God that feeds us through his creation, nourishing our body, soul, and spirit, feeds us sacramentally: body, soul, and spirit. He is the source of the communion of life, as he affirms in the Gospel. “As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me.” A worthy eating and drinking of this Sacrament preserves us from sin and death and increases our communion with God. Hence, we refer to the Sacrament as our Communion. It is also the Eucharist because it is a thanksgiving to God for the wonderful gift of eternal life and communion in His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. It is the sacrament of the Passion of the Lord because it represents the sacrifice of his will as Man to the Father. Let us receive the Sacrament of Life and Communion with attentive devotion and thanksgiving for the manifold gifts of God.

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 live and reign with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.