Readings: Genesis 14.18-20 / Ps 110. 1, 2, 3, 4 (R/v 4b) / 1 Corinthians 11.23-26 / Luke 9.11b-17
Sisters and brothers, what do we really celebrate on the Feast of Corpus Christi?
Is it the miracle we hear today of Jesus multiplying five loaves and two fish to feed the multitude? Perhaps, for many of us, like me when I was young, it is.
After all, how amazing it is, isn’t it, that Jesus can take small and few things – five loaves and two fish – from ordinary people – his disciples – and multiply them into many more loaves, much more fish for so many more people to eat and be satisfied.
Our second reading, however, gives us a clearer focus on what we must celebrate today. It is really the Eucharist.
This section from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians describes what happened when Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples. We, in fact, hear it at every Mass; it is part of the Eucharistic prayer.
What we hear first is Jesus giving thanks to God. He took the bread and gave thanks. In Greek Eucharist means thanksgiving. Thanksgiving to God is what Mass is about.
Eucharist is also what we receive in communion. “The body of Christ,” the priest says as he holds the Eucharist before you. Not a wafer or bread but the real and living body of Jesus. “Amen,” you say before you consume the Eucharist and let Jesus dwell in you.
Today on the feast of Corpus Christi, are we sufficiently thankful for the gift of the Eucharist that nourishes our lives? Thankful because it satisfies our hunger for God. Thankful because it heals our human infirmities. Thankful because it answers our worldly needs. Thankful because it assures us God cares. Thankful for no other reason than we are God’s own.
This is why the miracle in today’s gospel must matter: because Jesus will always feed us like he fed the multitude. He does not abandon us in poverty and pain. He always provides to care and uplift, often giving us much more. We know how true Jesus’ love is for us: he died for us to have life.
How thankful are we for Jesus?
“This is my body that is for you.” Paul quotes Jesus. His words enable us to celebrate the Eucharist better. They point to the nature of the Eucharist but also to the fact that he gives his all: his body is for the world, as his body is for you and me.
In Jesus as Eucharist, everything God has, God gives freely, totally, selflessly and fruitfully gives for our wellbeing and happiness. God holds nothing back.
This is how God is for us. How are we with God? Do we give all of ourselves to God? Or, do we hold ourselves back, whether totally or in part?
We know how much less we are when we hold back from God and others. We feel empty in our selfishness, miserable in our hardheartedness and guilty in our cruelness. Sinfulness is our pain when we refuse to love God and neighbour.
Today’s readings are challenging us to give ourselves to God as God gives himself to us in the Eucharist. We are to give ourselves as Jesus did – freely, totally, selfless and fruitfully. Not for us Abraham’s return of a tithe of everything that we hear in the first reading.
Why give ourselves to God? Because God loves us and we love God. This is too simplistic.
I want to suggest a much better answer. It is this: we give ourselves to God to let God do to us what God does for the world through Jesus – to reach out to those in need so as to love and save them.
Can we do this? Yes, through God’s gift of Jesus in the Eucharist. Jesus feeds and nourishes us. He exists for others, not for himself. His body is our daily bread.
Catholics believe we are transformed when we receive Jesus in the Eucharist. We become what we receive – the Body of Christ. Not for ourselves but for others: for us to love God and to serve all, just as Jesus did.
This is why Paul reminds us that we are to “proclaim the Lord’s death.” Our mission in Christian life is to evangelise, to tell people about the good news of Jesus. We do this best by our deeds than by our words.
Perhaps the real miracle of the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish is this. The crowd witnessing how Jesus shared the little he had also begun to share the little they had with one another. As they imitated Jesus, they multiplied the few and small into the many and abundant.
This is how you and I as the Body of Christ are to live in and for our world. It is precisely when we give away what little we have to satisfy others in need and make them happy that the great mystery of Jesus multiplying five loaves and two fish becomes visible in our lives. This is how we must live as people of the Eucharist.
The real focus of today’s celebration is therefore much more than bread and wine becoming Jesus’ body and blood. It is the truth about how the Eucharist transforms us to live as Jesus did – freely, totally, selflessly, fruitfully for the salvation of all.
This was the message in the very first homily I wrote as a priest for this feast of Corpus Christi. I was then serving in Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta parish in Boston. I worked hard on the homily because I wanted the parish to appreciate and celebrate the Eucharist beyond that image of the miracle of five loaves and two fish.
After praying over the readings, researching the theological writings, drafting and redrafting the homily, I delivered it. When I was done, I sat down confident that my homily was very good and I had nourished the faithful. God taught me otherwise.
At the end of that Mass, as I greeted the many faithful who talked with me or thanked me, an old woman walked up and said, “Thank you, Father, for a wonderful Mass. I enjoyed your homily”.
I asked, “Which part?” as I anticipated her compliment for the profound theological message I had preached about us becoming the Body of Christ to save others. Such was my arrogance.
“Oh, I like that you began with the memory of Corpus Christi processions. The swaying canopy, the incense, the singing, the priest processing with the monstrance – all this delighted me. I felt young again!”
“But that’s not what I said!” “Yes, you did,” she insisted. “Your homily made me feel like a little girl at Corpus Christi and I’m happy”. She smiled as she bade goodbye.
I was aghast. But Jack, the parish priest, standing beside me, said: “Jesus gave her what she needed: to be young again. You were simply his bread broken for her today”.
Indeed all we need to be is Jesus for one another. To be bread broken for others by simply giving ourselves as his Body to all. And as we do this, to humbly let Jesus feed them as he needs to. He will know what they need, and he will give them what they must receive. We just have to be Jesus' simple gifts like the five loaves and two fish.
The real miracle we celebrate today is Jesus taking us as we are – whether we are bruised and stained by sin or saintly and hope-filled by grace — and blessing us to become his bread for others.
Then, he will break us and give us to all because, in his hands, you and I are offered to the hungry and thirsty, the pained and lost, to all, as God’s goodness for them.
Isn’t this what we celebrate when we receive Jesus at Communion? Not Jesus as our reward for how good we are, but Jesus cherishing you and me as good enough to be his bread broken to feed, nourish and save all.
Will you and I come to the Eucharist, then, grateful that we are receiving Jesus?
Preached at Church of the Transfiguration, Singapore
photo: archdiocese of cardiff
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