May 29^th 2016. corpus christi - the body and blood of christ

GOSPEL:  Luke 9:11-17

From a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio

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GOSPEL:  Luke 9:11-17

Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God,
and he healed those who needed to be cured.
As the day was drawing to a close,
the Twelve approached him and said,
"Dismiss the crowd
so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms
and find lodging and provisions;
for we are in a deserted place here."
He said to them, "Give them some food yourselves."
They replied, "Five loaves and two fish are all we have,
unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people."
Now the men there numbered about five thousand.
Then he said to his disciples,
"Have them sit down in groups of about fifty."
They did so and made them all sit down.
Then taking the five loaves and the two fish,
and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing over them, broke them,
and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.
They all ate and were satisfied.
And when the leftover fragments were picked up,
they filled twelve wicker baskets.

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In the Gospel reading, the most meagre of material elements – five loaves and two fishes – are transformed into a feast for a multitude of people. This Feast of Corpus Christi challenges us to entrust our simple and humble offerings to the Lord, and he will transform them into an abundant harvest. How is this “multiplication” to take place on a daily basis? The Body of Christ can mean the physical body of Jesus, the Eucharistic species, or the body that is the Church. In all three cases we have a union of the human and the divine. The same union of human and divine must also characterize our lives. We are challenged to radically consecrate and entrust our meagre human contributions to the Lord, and he will transform them into something marvellous! This is what happened in the lives of the saints. Take Francis of Assisi, for example, a man who had a short life and who had little power or influence in worldly terms. He made his offering to the Lord and look what the Lord has done with it! Similarly, we are challenged to offer our daily trials and efforts to the Lord. If we have difficulties or tribulations, let us offer them to the Lord on the altar along with the body of Christ. Jesus will transform them into something that gives us and the world divine nourishment.

In both the first reading and the Gospel we are challenged to view everything from the perspective of God’s providence. Ordinary things can be infused with the divine if only we entrust them to God

This week, to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, we have the account of the multiplication of loaves and fishes from St Luke’s Gospel. This is illuminated by the first reading from Genesis, which presents the mysterious and inexplicable figure of Melchizedek. Melchizedek, we are told, is king of Salem. He takes out bread and wine and blesses Abraham. What incredible richness is contained in so few words! Long before the Jewish priesthood, hundreds of years before even Moses comes on the scene, we are presented with this image of a priest who illuminates the story of Abraham like a thunderbolt from the sky. Abraham has just been successful in battle and he offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving. In other words, he dedicates everything to the Lord, the finality and ultimate end of everything for Abraham is in God. In the Gospel story, we see a similar entrustment of everything into the hands of the Lord. The apostles wish to avoid the problem of the hunger of the crowd by sending them all into the villages to find food. Jesus, instead, wishes to teach the apostles that problems must be confronted and lived out in God. In other words, Jesus’ approach to life is that of one who is in a relation of sonship with the Father. The apostles, by contrast, look only at the meagre fact of the paltry loaves and fishes at their disposal. Their gaze does not rise above a flat and pragmatic human perspective.

The body of Christ, whether we speak of Jesus’ physical body, the Eucharistic species or the body that is the Church, is a reality that incorporates a fundamental unity of the human and the divine. In a similar way, we are challenged to entrust our meagre human offerings  to the Lord so that they might bear a divine harvest

On this Feast of Corpus Christi we can speak in three different senses of the body of Christ. Firstly, there is the real body of Jesus who is fully human and fully divine. Then there is the Eucharistic species which we celebrate on this feast. The bread and wine are ordinary things that contain within them the presence of Christ in a full and complete way. Finally there is the Church of which Christ is the head and we are the members. In all three cases we have a happy and paradoxical co-existence of the human and the divine. Christ’s resurrected body is the body of a man but also that of the second person of the Holy Trinity. The Church has a divine head but its members are human. And this is celebrated in the Eucharist where we have the simple elements of bread and wine, which remain bread and wine, but constitute also the authentic presence of Christ. And this twofold mystery is also present in our lives. We are called to live the daily, commonplace and material things of our lives with God. In this way, the human elements of our lives become something more; they become “sufficient” in the same way that five loaves and two fishes become food for thousands of people. We see this in the lives of many saints. Even though they may be small and limited, nevertheless wonderful works of God are accomplished in them. St Francis had a short life that was limited in many respects, but how many people throughout history have been nourished by the abundance that God has brought forth from the humble offering of this man!

If we offer our problems to the Lord on the altar during Mass in union with the body of Christ, then those things are transformed and “multiplied” by him into divine nourishment for ourselves and the world

Let us live everything so that it becomes Christ. The Feast of Corpus Christi is a feast that calls us to give what we have to Christ so that God can take that everything and make it into a reality that is filled with the divine. If we are living through a tribulation of some sort, and we offer that tribulation to the Lord along with the body of Christ on the altar during Mass, then that tribulation will become an essential part of the story of our salvation. The anguish and sufferings that we have - when offered to Christ during the Mass - are taken and broken by him and multiplied so that they become beautiful and healthy nourishment. Innumerable Christians have seen their small offerings transformed into an abundant harvest by the Lord; they have witnessed mere material things become the seat of the action of God. God is completely transcendent but he becomes something that we can experience. How many times we offer words that are merely human to people in difficulty, and with these words we help them to escape from spiritual darkness and introduce them to a new life. How many times people are led to the faith by our finite and inadequate words! This is a manifestation of the body of Christ present in the Church. The Eucharist expresses the challenge of existence in which we are called to live every aspect of our lives in union with God. Everything is designed, ordained and set before us by Providence as a potential eruption of the presence of God.