Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ

         The three readings today invite us to reflect on the meaning of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is nourishment. It is not like a medicine that does something automatically, it must be received with faith, accepting the commitment that the act of eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ entails. All three readings insist on the close link between the Eucharist and life, between the Bread that is Christ and the bread that nourishes the body. We cannot be in communion with the Body of the Lord without sharing what we have. We see this in the first reading and in the Gospel. The second reading stresses the incompatibility between the “breaking of bread” and dissensions and divisions in the community.

           Just as we nourish our bodies three or more times a day to be physically healthy, So Jesus tells us what we need to be healthy spiritually and worthy of God’s kingdom. Christ gives us himself because he knows we need him. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” Today’s feast celebrates the life of Christ in us. The Church is his body and he nourishes us through the gift of the Eucharist, a mystery of love and hope for eternal life from God. The Eucharist is the spiritual source of our Christian lives, where we are able to be nourished in faith and joy by the bread of life and the cup of eternal salvation. As St. Augustine says, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” And Pope Leo XIV said, “Let us build a church founded on God’s love, a sign of unity, a missionary church that opens its arms to the world, proclaims the word, allows itself to be made restless by history, and becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity.”