Very often the second reading, sometimes known as the "epistle reading," is ignored. It's okay because the Gospel is what the preacher usually focuses on. This is as it should be most of the time.
In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul wrote about the Eucharist in several passages. In the section of the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians from which our second reading for today's solemnity is taken, the apostle is writing about avoiding idolatry. In particular, he warned about participating in public rituals in which animals were sacrificed to pagan deities.
Paul stated clearly that these sacrifices were not merely to non-existent entities. Rather, these were sacrifices to demons. Of course, the priest who conducted these sacrifices and those who participated did not deliberately and knowingly sacrifice to demons. Pagan and Christian understanding of of divinity were very different, which is what made Christians weird and Christianity a strange religion. Nonetheless, Paul insists that is what they did.
A few chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians, Paul approves eating the meat of animals sacrificed in pagan rituals. He just urges Christians not to partake of this meat if it caused scandal to other Christians, those with what he calls "a weak conscience" (1 Cor 8:10). One reason for this is that, unlike our situation today in advanced countries, meat was not readily available. So, a large public sacrificial ritual was likely an occasion when people could obtain it.
What Paul objects to is participation in the pagan worship. Okay, nice. So what? Well, even in our day, idols abound. I'd say idolatry now is more profligate than it was in the first Christian century. Idolatry, according to Saint Paul a few verses past the two that constitute our reading, provokes "the Lord to jealous anger" (1 Cor 10:22).
True worship, the highest form of worship, is Mass, the Eucharistc liturgy. By partaking of holy communion, we individually are made into members of Christ's body and together we become the Body of Christ, Corpus Christi. Rejecting historicism, I am still inclined theologically to assent to Henri de Lubac's provocative insistence that at some point there was a reversal in our understanding of the Body of Christ.
This reveral made the Eucharist, the transubstaniated elements of bread and wine, verum Corpus Christi and the Church Corpus Christi mysticum. Isn't it actually Christ's mysterious and mystical, empirically undetectable, presence in the bread and the wine that make us, the Church, his true Body? One problem is that today we think of "real" as empirical, tangible, measureable. While such things certainly are real, not only do they not exhaust reality, they are not what is most real. If the the Eucharist is the bread of angels, doesn't it have to be mystical? Again, "mystical" doesn't mean less real.
I repeat this often, the only truly convincing proof that the bread and the wine become Christ's body and blood are the lives of those who partake of it. It is up to you and me to demonstrate the truth of the mystery at the very heart of reality. To deal with an objection that might easily be made to what I just wrote, this in no way fails to recognize the ex opere operato nature of the Eucharist.
Transubstantiation, if you will, happens whether you believe it or not. This is all fine and well, serving as a great ontological backstop. In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein asserted that if God could talk we wouldn't be able to understand him.
In his great work of systematic theology, Principles of Christian Theology, John Macquairrie, in a similar vein, noted that for revelation to be revelation it wasn't enough for God reveal. God's revelation requires a recipient. In other words, if God speaks and no one understands, did the falling tree make a noise or how many people in the third car of the Chicago-bound train have blue eyes?
Anyway, it's easy to get lost in words. So, let's stick with "the Eucharist makes the Church and the Church makes the Eucharist." Or, better yet, Saint Paul's rheortical questions from our reading, which he answers in the following verse: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor 10:16).
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