My Body is Food, My Blood is Drink
1. My Body and Blood for You
2. The Blood of the Covenant
Introduction
1. My Body and Blood for You
We admire great men and women who dedicated their lives to the good of others and were even willing to die for them. This is precisely what we celebrate whenever we come together for the Eucharist. We celebrate Jesus’ life and death for us, but also his resurrection, for he is alive here among us, in his Church, in our world. In fact, each Mass is another Easter, a celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection. But when we do what he told us to do, “Do this in memory of me,” we must also learn to give ourselves to God and to our brethren, the way Jesus gave himself. In this Eucharist he gives us this disposition.
2. The Blood of the Covenant
Many bodies are broken today through the use of brute force and torture; much blood is shed of innocent people and children. Violence leads to hatred and more violence. Today we hear of someone whose broken body brought us peace, who willingly shed his blood to bring us God’s forgiveness and love. “This is my body given for you. This is my blood of the everlasting covenant.” Every Eucharist is a message of hope that the love of God is with us now and forever. Let us thank the Father today for the great gift of Jesus in the Eucharist. Let us celebrate in his memorial.
First Reading: Blood Relatives of God
God chooses himself a people and shares its destiny. He unites it to himself by ties of blood and by eating and drinking with them.
1 Reading: Genesis 14:18-20
In those days, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine,
and being a priest of God Most High, he blessed Abram with these words:
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High, the creator of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High, who delivered your foes into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 110:1, 2, 3, 4
R.(4b) You are a priest forever, in the line of Melchizedek.
The LORD said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand
till I make your enemies your footstool.” R.
The scepter of your power the LORD will stretch forth from Zion:
“Rule in the midst of your enemies.” R.
“Yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in holy splendor;
before the daystar, like the dew, I have begotten you.” R.
The LORD has sworn, and he will not repent:
“You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” R.
Second Reading: God’s New People in the Blood of Christ
By shedding his blood for us, Christ has transfused new life into God’s people. Now we are capable of freedom from sin and of lasting faithfulness to God.
2 Reading: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Brothers and sisters: I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
Sequence Lauda Sion
Laud, O Zion, your salvation,
Laud with hymns of exultation,
Christ, your king and shepherd true:
Bring him all the praise you know,
He is more than you bestow.
Never can you reach his due.
Special theme for glad thanksgiving
Is the quick’ning and the living
Bread today before you set:
From his hands of old partaken,
As we know, by faith unshaken,
Where the Twelve at supper met.
Full and clear ring out your chanting,
Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,
From your heart let praises burst:
For today the feast is holden,
When the institution olden
Of that supper was rehearsed.
Here the new law’s new oblation,
By the new king’s revelation,
Ends the form of ancient rite:
Now the new the old effaces,
Truth away the shadow chases,
Light dispels the gloom of night.
What he did at supper seated,
Christ ordained to be repeated,
His memorial ne’er to cease:
And his rule for guidance taking,
Bread and wine we hallow, making
Thus our sacrifice of peace.
This the truth each Christian learns,
Bread into his flesh he turns,
To his precious blood the wine:
Sight has fail’d, nor thought conceives,
But a dauntless faith believes,
Resting on a pow’r divine.
Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things to sense forbidden;
Signs, not things are all we see:
Blood is poured and flesh is broken,
Yet in either wondrous token
Christ entire we know to be.
Whoso of this food partakes,
Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;
Christ is whole to all that taste:
Thousands are, as one, receivers,
One, as thousands of believers,
Eats of him who cannot waste.
Bad and good the feast are sharing,
Of what divers dooms preparing,
Endless death, or endless life.
Life to these, to those damnation,
See how like participation
Is with unlike issues rife.
When the sacrament is broken,
Doubt not, but believe ’tis spoken,
That each sever’d outward token
doth the very whole contain.
Nought the precious gift divides,
Breaking but the sign betides
Jesus still the same abides,
still unbroken does remain. Alleluia! Amen!
Alleluia: John 6:51
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord;
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: The Meal of our Covenant
Jesus renews the covenant with us when he shares his body and blood with us in every Eucharistic celebration.
Gospel: Luke 9:11b-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.
Commentary
Recently in a church I noticed that the resident religious community were all sitting as far removed from one another as the architecture and furniture allowed. Since then I’ve noticed it in many other places. We need space, it’s true; but if that’s the only thing we need, it’s the end of community. Children sit away from one another only when there has been a fight. But they soon make it up again. There must be something permanently wrong with adults who do it instinctively and always. The Eucharist is an assembly of the faithful. It brings us together, expressing our union in Christ and our eternal union with God. How can we say these things and still go on sitting far apart? I often think that the farther from the mouth, the more truthful our language. We tell lies with our mouth, we tell the truth with our feet.
The Eucharist is bodily: the truth stands out in it more clearly and powerfully than anywhere else—so powerfully that it is expected to affect our whole subsequent life. But what if it doesn’t affect us even while we are present at it? The feast of the Body and Blood of Christ is a day for meditating on the bodily truth—our own, and that of the Eucharist.
Blessing
Our Lord found a way
to stay always by our side
and to accompany us on the road of life.
He became our flesh and blood.
Let us too find ways
to support one another in dark days
and to rejoice together in bright days
and may God go all the way with you and bless you:
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. R/ Amen.
Let us go with the Lord and accompany one another in life.
R/ Thanks be to God.