The Body and Blood of Christ, June 6, 2021

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Gratitude for all God has done for us and for Jesus’ gift of Himself must lead to action

Mark 14:12–16, 22–26

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.

Music Meditations

Opening Prayer

Lord, what shall we do with the gift you have given us of your very self? How can we learn to “see” you in the breaking of the bread? How can we go beyond wonder and gratitude to an actual living out of your presence in ourselves and in this world? How can we bring the comfort of your real presence to those we meet? [Call to mind particular people who may be especially in need of God’s presence.] Help us to be Christ for others.

Companions for the Journey

From First Impressions 2021, a service of the southern Dominican Province

On the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ there is a tendency to go right to the gospel narratives of the Last Supper, where Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. In today’s account Jesus takes and blesses bread, gives it to his disciples saying, “Take it, this is my body.” He gives thanks over the cup, gives it to them saying, “This is my blood which will be shed for many”. Isn’t that the focus of today, Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist at table with his disciples? Yes, but wait a minute, what Jesus did comes from the context of the Passover and that takes us to the Jewish roots of the meal. So, let us go there, to our ancestral story, from the book of Exodus, our first reading. Our scriptures today make reference to the use of blood in ritual re-enactment to seal our relationship with God, both in the ancient and new covenants. We are in the 24th chapter of Exodus, the ratification of the Sinai covenant. Exodus gives a dramatic account of the ritual of word and then blood. First, Moses reads the laws to the people—a reminder of our own liturgy of the Word. It is obvious that people didn’t think God’s “words and ordinances” were restrictive, or burdensome, because they respond, “We will do everything that the Lord has told us.”

Well, that was certainly optimistic of them! We know from our own experience that enthusiasm, while a good response to God, is not enough for faithfully carrying out God’s will. Hence, the subsequent rituals. First, the burnt offerings of the young bulls. It symbolizes the people’s total self-offering to God. It is called a “peace offering”; both establishing and celebrating the peace made between God and the people. Among the ancients blood was seen as the life force. The pouring of blood in the ceremony sealed the covenant. First, it was splashed on the altar, honoring God as the initiator and principal partner in the covenant. God has reached out to the people, not because of their merits, but because of God’s love. God wants to be in a permanent relationship with them. The people realize this. Is it any wonder that twice they profess their desire to follow God’s “words and ordinances”? “We will do everything that the Lord has told us.” “All what the Lord has said, we will heed and do.”

And aren’t those the responses we want to make to what God has done for us and what we celebrate today? However, on our own, we cannot do “everything the Lord has told us.” But we are in covenantal relationship with God who has sealed the covenant with us in blood. Christ has offered himself on the altar for us, symbolizing God’s total self-offering to us. It is clear in today’s gospel that Mark’s narration of Jesus’ gift of himself, his body and blood, is to be seen in light of the tradition of the Passover feast, where the Jews celebrate their deliverance from slavery with the meal of the sacrificial lamb. Today, we Christians celebrate our deliverance from sin with the meal of Jesus’ body and blood. Note, Mark mentions “the cup,” not the wine, in his telling. Remember that previously in Mark Jesus asked the ambitious James and John if they could “drink the cup that I drink…?” (10:38-39) In the garden, before his arrest, Jesus prayed, “Father… take this cup away from me…” (14:36) The cup is the symbol of sacrifice, suffering and death. We followers of Jesus are invited to share in his life, the fullness of which includes our own sacrificial, self-offering. With the Israelites in our first reading, we too want to shout, “We will do everything that the Lord has told us.” Well, we do try, but on our own, our discipleship falls short. But we are not discouraged because we are not on our own. God has made a covenant with us, sealed with the blood of God’s own Son. We who eat and drink of the food from the altar have a share in Jesus’ saving death and his new life.

At table with his disciples Jesus promises he will one day drink in the kingdom, the reign of God. He reminds us that the Eucharist we share today is not just a simple remembrance of a past event when he ate his Last Supper with his friends. The meal, his gift of his body and blood, also anticipates the feast we will someday enjoy with him and each other at his table, the eternal banquet.

But in the between-time of this meal, we can work to fulfill what this meal symbolizes—reconciliation and community, welcome to sinners and strangers, God’s embrace of all God’s creatures.

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Take it, this is my body. This is my blood of the new covenant, which will be shed for many.

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

  • Jesus gathered his disciple around the table to offer himself to them. Who is gathered around the table with me today?
    Who are the “many” who are not at the table with me today? (This could be those from whom I am estranged, or it could be those who don’t feel comfortable in the setting I find myself in, or those who mightn’t feel welcome because they are poor or don’t speak the language, or who are not educated enough)
    What am I doing to gather others to the table of life?
  • We have been invited to the table of plenty, being shaped and formed around it—shaped and formed to be better members of the family of Jesus. Have I ever had to summon courage to do the right thing?
    Was there a cost?
    Am I making any daily sacrifices that are in some small way similar to the ones Jesus made?
  • From Faith Book, a service of the Southern Dominican Province:
    Receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord gives us a share in his life, death and resurrection so that we too can willingly give our lives in service and love for others the way he did. When we take the cup and drink from it today we are saying our “Yes” to Jesus’ way of life and we are receiving his life so that we can live the “Yes” we are professing.
    Do we just see certain parts of our lives as dedicated to service in the Lord’s name?
    Shall we ask the Spirit to help us offer all of our lives in service to the Lord?
  • There is a temptation to turn this feast into a theological discussion of “transubstantiation” or the “real presence”. If instead, I allow myself to submit to both joy and wonder I may be the richer for it.
    For me, what is wonderful about this feast?
    How does this miracle fit into some other wondrous acts of God in history? In my own life?
    Which action of God do I marvel at the most?
  • From Walter Burghardt, S.J.:
    Do I marvel in what I see, or in the fact that I see?
  • There is a saying : “You are what you eat”. If this is so, those of us who partake of Jesus body and blood in the Eucharist PUT ON Christ, BECOME Christ. Do I believe this?
    In what ways this week have I done so, or failed to do so?
    Can others see Christ in me?
    How does my life reflect the true presence of Christ in the world?
  • From Faith Book, 2012:
    Reflection:
    Receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord gives us a share in his life, death and resurrection so that we too can willingly give our lives in service and love for others the way he did. When we take the cup and drink from it today we are saying our “Yes” to Jesus’ way of life and we are receiving his life so that we can live the “Yes” we are professing.
    So we ask ourselves:
    Do we just see certain parts of our lives as dedicated to service in the Lord’s name?
    Shall we ask the Spirit to help us offer all of our lives in service to the Lord?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

A celebration of the food of life can lead to reflection on the importance of food (health, education, and shelter as well) … The US Catholic bishops on the Christian response to poverty:

Perhaps the first step that needs to be taken in dealing with poverty is to change our attitudes to the poor.
Everyone has special duties toward the poor; all who have more than they need must come to the aid of the poor.
Seek solutions that enable the poor to help themselves through such means as fairly compensated employment.
The policies we establish as a society must reflect the hierarchy of values in which the needs of the poor take priority over the desires of the rich.
Share the perspectives of those who are suffering.

Which of these suggestions is the most challenging for you to agree with or adopt?
What concrete action can you take this week to bring the care of Christ to those in need?

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

Christ is truly present in the wine and bread after it has become the body and blood of Jesus… Have we ever reflected on the ways that Jesus is truly present at our Sunday banquet?
He is present in the Word. How actively do I really listen as Scriptures are proclaimed?
He is present in the presider. Do I see the priest as a true representative of Jesus at each Mass?
He is present in the gathered community. Do I see in the assembly the presence of Jesus? Do I see myself as the actual presence of Jesus in Mass and in the world?
I offer a prayer of thanksgiving and humility for the privilege of participating in the Eucharistic banquet.

Poetic Reflection:

Sometimes we need to look at the mystery of the body and blood of Christ with our hearts and not with our heads:

“The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist”

Something has happened
To the bread
And the wine.

They have been blessed.
What now?
The body leans forward

To receive the gift
From the priest’s hand,
Then the chalice.

They are something else now
From what they were
Before this began.

I want
To see Jesus,
Maybe in the clouds

Or on the shore,
Just walking,
Beautiful man

And clearly
Someone else
Besides.

On the hard days
I ask myself
If I ever will.

Also there are times
My body whispers to me
That I have.

—Mary Oliver, from Thirst

Poetic Reflection:

This is a wonderful meditation on Eucharist:

"Gather the People"

What return can we make
for all the Lord has done in our lives?
We bring bread, wine, our clay dishes
and our clay feet
to this altar
and we pray that we may here
make a beginning—
that somehow in our days
we can begin to see the promises
the Lord has made us.

The promises do not always
glow with obvious light, or
overwhelm us by their obvious truth.
No matter what anyone says,
it is difficult to understand an invisible God
and belief is not always
the easy way out.

So we gather the people
and we tell the story again
and we break the bread
and in the memory of the one
who saves us,
we eat and drink
and we pray and we believe.

We gather, we pray, we eat.
These things are for human beings.
God has no need of them.
Yet he himself gathered the people,
prayed, broke bread
and gave it to his friends.

And so the invisible God became
visible
and lives with us.

—Ed Ingebretzen, S.J., from Psalms of the Still Country

Closing Prayer

I beg you to keep me in this silence so that I can learn
from it
the word of your peace
and the word of your mercy
and the word of your gentleness to the world:
and that through me your word of peace may perhaps
make itself heard
where it has not been possible for anyone to hear it
For a long time.

—Thomas Merton