Corpus Cristi (a sermon on the Feast)

‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever, and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’ Life is something, which we take for granted. Life is such a wonderful gift that it is ok if we have got used to that it is ‘always there’. As in our illustration imaginatively shows, God’s heart, full of the fire of his love, has continuously creating the world. The playful dance of the tongues of fire show this: God, out of love, every moment re-creates our world and keeps it in existence.

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, however, is a reminder, that this gift is not to be taken for granted. Corpus Christi Sunday invites us to think about ‘God’ as our daily Bread. Just as we have got used to food (somehow there is always something to eat and drink), it is just as easy to take God’s ‘Creation’ and our life to be granted. Have we thought of the fact that ‘bread’ is our most important, and most frequently used word?
John’s Gospel explains why, if we are attentive, God’s Name and Bread are synonymous. We Christians can recognise that it is the same Gift, it is the same source of Life. Ó artos ó gon, ‘The Bread of Life’, that is, the ‘Bread that belongs to the true life’, the Bread that is full of the life it is intended to impart, the Bread which lives and makes everyone alive who partakes of it.

Our painting shows this complex mystery. God wants to share his Life with us. The Holy Trinity ( candles, holy spirit, redeemer-Son) offer the same life that they have for the Earth Community, for the whole of Creation. God has been holding our Earthly home (history), keeping us on his breast, transforming us into his Life. The Cross expresses us the Biblical truth: Jesus is full of Life and the Giver of Life. He ‘has come down from heaven’. This bread is coming down from Heaven. This ‘vision’, as our painting shows, appears from among the gentle clouds which surrounds this Life-Giving Heart, which look like a rich table…
Can we live without eating and receiving this food? Can our faith remain alive? Can our love and compassion be renewed without this daily, weekly sustenance?

When we are eating the Body and Blood of Christ, to eat means to ‘believe in Jesus’. That explains why it is God’s purpose that we eat this Bread, or literally that we believe in his Son.  ‘If anyone shall eat this bread he shall live for ever.’ As our painting shows, God reaches out to everyone and offers this Bread, this faith. But the wording shows that there shall be those who eat. Some will refuse to eat, but many will be moved to eat!

Those who eat this Bread, those who believe, they ‘shall live for ever’. Wow! One act of eating bestows life! So, we can recapitulate today’s gospel expressed in our painting. The Bread lives. Those who believe, who eat this Bread, have life eternal. The wonderful circle of salvation is closed: Jesus, the Life, is the centre. All who are made one with him by faith and the Sacraments, are joined to him and are made full partakers of his life, all what he has, or what he does, of what he himself is.   

The centre of our image is the Cross. Worth noticing, it connects the continents: Jesus’ Cross unites all peoples. ‘And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’ The Bread of Life, come down from Haven was the Father’s gift… The Incarnation of the Son and his saving mission. ‘and the Bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world’. This is the gift that Jesus presently gives! It is the gift of his flesh and his blood in the sacrifice upon the cross. This is the gift Jesus himself makes, and will make in every Eucharistic celebration.

The ‘body of Christ’ always one with his sacrificial death on the cross. Jesus By giving himself into death Jesus gives himself to us as the Bread of Life. The Bread, the flesh, the act of giving, all together have one purpose: they intend that the world may have the true heavenly life.

Let us go back to our starting point. Today’s feast (with the help of our image and today’s Gospel) encourages us to see the Source. All the life, all the food, we receive, heavenly and earthly Bread, is the gift of Jesus’ saving death and Resurrection. Let us see the person of Jesus, our friend and Redeemer, as if through a window, in every gift of our lives.
 
11.05.2023