The Miracle and Mystery of the Eucharist
Homily for Solemnity of Corpus Christi - 2 June 2024
I remember my first weekend at Emoyeni Mission Station near Gingindlovu in Northern Zululand at the very start of my vocational journey, around 30 years ago. The mission station was on a hill surrounded by a sea of sugar cane, and the church was large and echo-y. It was my first time to be immersed in a completely Zulu liturgical setting. At communion time I became aware of shuffling to my right as I sat on the aisle in a pew on the left hand side. I turned to see a severely crippled small woman shuffling on her elbows and knees on the hard Marley tile floor in the communion line. When she got to the front, the priest bent down to place the host on her tongue as she raised her head. She turned around and started the long journey to the back of the church, where I would see her often in the months to come.
I got to know Raphaela of Gingindlovu well. She was fiercely independent, although sometimes she allowed the children from the mission school to push her around in a wheelbarrow. She tended her own patch of spinach near the hut where she lived, about 70 metres from the church. She was always at Mass, needing to leave in good time to crawl over the rough ground to get to her place on the floor at the back of the church. And always, she made her way on elbows and knees to the front to receive Holy Communion. It struck me that by the time she got to the front she must have been fully aware of what she was doing, why she was doing it, and who she was receiving.
I remember lifting her one day into the back of the kombi—she was as light as a feather—to take her to the hospital, where she died a day later. Her story remains iconic for me in terms of the beauty and meaning of Eucharist. Raphaela continues to teach me to this day as I recall her making her way on elbows and knees to receive Holy Communion.
If I could wish one thing, ask one thing, for you and me, at this celebration of Corpus Christi, it would be that we would deepen our understanding of what it is we are doing when we celebrate Mass, and that we would know who it is we are receiving when we receive Holy Communion. That is the essential point of this solemnity that we observe today.
The meaning and purpose of this Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, which in Latin is referred to as Corpus Christi, is to renew our sense of wonder in the face of this extraordinary gift. We want to avoid taking the mystery and miracle of the Eucharist for granted. If we were to stop appreciating this heavenly food, we would soon stop hungering for it, and we would end up hungering more for worldly things than for God, and our spiritual lives would become weak from lack of nourishment.
Today we celebrate the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharistic bread and wine. It is a gift of Jesus of himself. When we celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity last Sunday, we celebrated the God who reaches out to human beings and, in doing so, reveals himself to be Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The gift of Jesus of himself in the Eucharist is a further extension of God reaching out to us, and speaks of a God who longs for intimacy with us.
In terms of God reaching out to us in the Eucharist, St Francis of Assisi wrote: “See the extraordinary humility of our God who so humbles himself out of love for us and for our salvation ... that God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, takes on the form of a little piece of bread and a little bit of wine, to give himself to us.”
At the Last Supper, as we read in today’s Gospel, when Jesus gave his disciples bread and wine, at his words, the bread and wine became his Body and Blood. Jesus commanded his disciples to continue this celebration in memory of him, and nearly 2000 years later we are still fulfilling that command as we meet here for Mass today. In celebrating the Mass, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus and we receive this gift of Jesus of himself.
Jesus Christ is really and truly present in the Eucharist, uniting us to his Passion, Death and Resurrection. We do not believe that the Eucharist just points to the Lord, signifies our union with Christ, or is a symbol of Christ. We Catholics, in continuity with the first Christians, and Catholics down through the centuries, believe that when the bread and wine are consecrated during the Mass, the very essence of the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. When we speak about the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, we use the term ‘real presence’. Even though we still see and taste only bread and wine, we believe that the bread and wine have been transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ.
The New Covenant
The first reading from the book of Exodus describes the covenant made by sacrifice, at Sinai between God and the Israelites. The blood that was sprinkled expressed a profound sharing of life between God and his people. This sacrifice at Sinai was the precursor to the daily Temple sacrifices, and especially the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, when the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies with the blood of a goat to sprinkle the mercy seat on the altar, and then go to sprinkle the people.
The sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross which the Mass makes present to us again, is the definitive sacrifice that the second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews speaks of today. Jesus is the perfection and fulfilment of the Old Testament sacrifices. Jesus gives us the new covenant made in his blood, the covenant in which we are renewed, through our participation in the Mass.
When Jesus says at the Last Supper, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he is drawing a straight line back to Exodus, chapter 24, our first reading for this Mass, the only place in the Old Testament where the phrase, “blood of the covenant” is used. Jesus is saying, “What I am doing here with you is as momentous as what Moses did on Mount Sinai.
Covenants in the Bible signify kinship with God - being drawn into a profound family-like relationship with God. Each time we celebrate the Mass we renew our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus and the grace that comes from Jesus’ death and resurrection is made present in us again. We participate in the New Covenant established by Jesus on the Cross, and we become sons and daughters of God.
The Jesuit, Henri de Lubac wrote that to receive the Eucharist is to receive the whole of the Bible in single mouthful. The New Testament is an account of the New Covenant, which is summed up in the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ. So, the Eucharist is the sum total of what God wants to say to us and give to us.
St Augustine, in his commentary on John, chapter 6, which contains Jesus’s teaching on the Eucharist, wrote that we become that which we receive. We receive the Body of Christ and we become the Body of Christ. While we say that we receive Holy Communion, we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, it is rather us who are received by Jesus, drawn into him, and changed into him. Jesus put us in a profound union with himself. We become part of him and he becomes part of us.
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ was established in the thirteenth century to promote respect and reverence for the Eucharist. This is still its purpose. So, find a point of entry into the Mass to understand the sacredness of what is happening, to participate fully, actively, and consciously. Know what it is you are doing and who it is you are receiving. Know the extraordinary beauty of the gift of the Eucharist.