The Tangible Presence of God
Listening to the Spirit
«Come, Holy Spirit, come! ... You, of comforters the best; you, the soul’s most welcome guest; … O most blessed Light divine, shine within these hearts of yours, and our inmost being fill! Where you are not, we have naught; nothing good in deed or thought, nothing free from taint or ill. Heal our wounds, our strength renew; on our dryness pour your dew; wash the stains of guilt away: On the faithful, who adore and confess you, evermore in your sevenfold gift descend; Give them virtue’s sure reward; Give them your salvation, Lord; Amen. Alleluia».
Listening to the Word
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover. While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”
Reflection
The solemnity of Corpus Christi, that is, the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, celebrates what we know and continually proclaim: the fact that God's presence among us happens in a very tangible and "material" way. The presence of Christ with his people is total, in body as well as in Spirit.
If we want to follow Christ, we are called to offer our love, our service in the same fashion. God chose to live with humanity. He chose to live with us as we are and we are not pure spirits. We are physical, material creatures. Christ chose to make His presence with us tangible so that we could do the same in our realities. Our community is truly Eucharistic when the presence of Christ is made truly concrete, "physical" and real; when the people around us – here and now – experience the radical, tangible, physical love of Christ.
Corpus Christi is the feast of communion; a living sign of Christ’s love who humbled and emptied himself so that we – and the multitude of believers scattered across the face of the earth – might remain united in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. By participating in the Eucharist and nourishing ourselves with it, we become builders of God’s Family and are placed on a path that does not allow for divisions. Take and eat: one cannot "eat" the Risen One, present in the form of bread, as if it were a mere piece of bread. For as often as we eat this bread and drink from this cup, we enter into communion with the person of the living Lord and with the brothers and sisters who await the Good News.
Every Eucharistic assembly is a pause for nomads, for pilgrims, a pause in our own exodus on this earth, towards the heavenly Jerusalem, where the Lord will receive us. And on the path of this exodus, the Eucharist is the viaticum that cannot be replaced: Jesus Christ is our food, the manna that satisfies, the light that illuminates, and the wisdom that always sets us back on our journey. This is why the Eucharist makes our life a chapter of the history of salvation. We are on a journey, we are on a mission, accompanied by the Risen One: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (Jn. 10:10). And in this faith journey, the Eucharist is the mystery of faith, the source of charity, the foundation of hope and the medicine of immortality.
To live the experience of faith means to let oneself be nourished by the Lord and to build one's existence not on material goods, but on the reality that does not perish: the gifts of God, His Word, and His Body. If we look around, we see that there are many offerings of food that do not come from the Lord and that apparently satisfy more. Some feed on money, others on success and vanity, others on power and pride. But the food that truly nourishes us and satisfies us is only that which the Lord gives us! Therefore, to receive communion implies the willingness to follow Christ who goes before us.
In many Cristian communities, processions will take place on Corpus Christi Sunday. This responds to the invitation (mandate) of Jesus, the Risen one: I go before you to Galilee. Go to the extreme ends of the world, take the Gospel to the world. Through the Eucharist, through the body and blood of Christ of which we partake, we ourselves become bearers of Christ; we ourselves become a procession of Corpus Christi.
«We bring Christ, present under the sign of bread, onto the streets of our cities. We entrust these streets, these homes, our daily life, to his goodness. May our streets be streets of Jesus! May our houses be homes for him and with him! May our life of every day be penetrated by his presence. With this gesture, let us place under his eyes the sufferings of the sick, the solitude of young people and the elderly, temptations, fears - our entire life. The procession represents an immense and public blessing for our city: Christ is, in person, the divine Blessing for the world. May the ray of his blessing extend to us all». (Benedict XVI, May 2005)
Sharing in the Eucharist means joining actively with Jesus Christ. Therefore, this Sacrament is not only a gift given to us by God. It is a gift that we must give to each other.
From the Sequence of Corpus Christi –
«… Very bread, good shepherd, tend us;
Jesus, of your love befriend us, you refresh us,
you defend us, your eternal goodness sends us in the land of life to see.
You who all things can and know, who on earth such food bestow,
grant us with your saints, though lowest,
where the heavenly feast you show, fellow heirs and guests to be.
Amen. Alleluia».
Reflection Questions
Gospel Reflections
Beyond the Gathering: Loving Through Conflict
Allowing Jesus to Change Us
