Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. This solemnity is traditionally known by its Latin shorthand: Corpus Christi. So, it isn’t just a city in Texas. It is by means of the sacraments, at the center of which is the Eucharist, that theology becomes concrete. It is by celebrating the sacraments that we participate in the Paschal Mystery.
Melchizedek, who figures prominently in our reading from Genesis, is a mysterious figure. Identified as “king of Salem” and “a priest of God most high,” he offers, not a bloody animal sacrifice, but an acceptable offering of bread and wine. In Eucharistic Prayer I, the celebrant, asking God to look upon our offerings of bread and wine, which stand as symbols for offering ourselves for God’s service, “with a serene and kindly countenance” and to accept them “as once you were pleased to accept… the offering of your high priest Melchizedek.”1
Therefore, in our responsorial Psalm today we sing, referring to Jesus Christ, “You are a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek.”2 Because we live in a place where the name “Melchizedek” is one we sometimes hear, it’s important to note that the connection between Christ and Melchizedek is unique and unrepeatable. Both its uniqueness and unrepeatability are rooted in the biblical reality that, just as Melchizedek is not a descendant or even a relative of Abram, Jesus of Nazareth is not a member of the priestly tribe of Levi, but from the tribe of Judah. There is one high priesthood that of Jesus Christ. There is one High Priest: Jesus Christ.
In truth, Jesus is not a high priest after the order of the Melchizedek. Rather, Melchizedek is a type of Christ. While, chronologically, Melchizedek precedes Christ, ontologically, Christ comes before Melchizedek.3
In our reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul writes that the Eucharist is something that he received from the Lord. And so, the Eucharist is what he handed on to them. Tradition is our English word for handing on. Being given directly by the Lord at his Last Supper, the Eucharist stands at the center of Tradition.
The Paschal Mystery can be summed up simply: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Paul, in our reading, notes that participation in the Eucharist is participation in the Paschal Mystery: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”4
Christ can only come again because he ascended. Once again, he did not ascend to distance himself from us. Far from it! He ascended and then sent the Holy Spirit not just to be closer to us than he would’ve been had he remained, but to be in us and extend God’s kingdom through us.
Our Gospel links the Eucharist with God’s kingdom. Healing is a sign of God’s Kingdom. In terms of healing, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop and martyr who lived in the second century, in his own letter to the Church at Ephesus, called mystical body of Christ “the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying.”5 Pope Francis, expounding on this theme, insists “the Eucharist is not the reward of saints, no, it is the Bread of sinners. This is why [Jesus] exhorts us: ‘Do not be afraid! Take and eat.’”6
As a result of what can only be described as a “Eucharistic meal,” the inspired author of Luke notes: “They all ate and were satisfied.”7 Hence, our Gospel demonstrates that our participation in the Eucharist calls us into service for the advancement of God’s kingdom.
When we think about Christ’s real presence, the only question worth addressing is What do we mean by “real”? By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is mystically, or spiritually, made present in the consecrated elements. Being the empiricists we are, we set spirit and matter in opposition. But for Jesus, Paul, and the Christians of ancient Corinth, what is spiritual is what is really real.
If God is spirit, then matter only exists because of spirit.8 It is the Holy Spirit that comes down and transforms the gifts we place on the altar so that, in turn, these can transform us into the body of Christ. Spirit means “breath.” To speak requires breath. In all the sacraments and in a very explicit way in the Eucharist, the word is made flesh, our flesh.
We should always be mindful that the only convincing proof that Christ is really present in the bread and in the wine, spiritually or otherwise, are the lives of those of us who partake of it. It is through our communion that together we truly become the body of Christ. Being the body of Christ means realizing, as we have all heard many times before, Christ has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no voice but ours.
The Lord seeks to be present in us so that he can be present through us no matter our circumstances. Eucharist means thanksgiving. Hence, in the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer we pray these words: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks… through Christ our Lord.”9 Important ways of giving thanks to God for giving us Christ, the Bread of Life, are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty, attending to those who are sick and in prison.
The Eucharist is not an end in itself. It is the primary means to the end of God being “all in all.”10
1 Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, Eucharistic Prayer I, sec. 93.↩
2 Psalm 110:4.↩
3 See Letter to the Hebrews 7.↩
4 1 Corinthians 11:26.↩
5 Saint Ignatius of Antioch. Letter to the Ephesians, chap. 20.↩
6 Pope Francis, Sunday Angelus, 6 June 2021. ↩
7 Luke 9:17.↩
8 John 4:24.↩
9 Roman Missal, The Solemnities of the Lord, Preface of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.↩
10 1 Corinthians 15:28..↩
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