THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST (14 June 2020)


FIRST READING (He gave you a food unknown to you and your fathers.)

A reading from the Book of Deuteronomy (8:2-3, 14b-16a)

Moses said to the people: Remember how for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.

“Do not forget the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery; who guided you through the vast and terrible desert with its saraph serpents and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground; who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock and fed you in the desert with manna, a food unknown to your fathers. The Word of the Lord.

R. Thanks be to God.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM (147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20)

R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem. (Ps 147:12)

Or Alleluia.

Glorify the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion. For he has strengthened the bars of your gates; he has blessed your children within you. (R)

He has granted peace in your borders; with the best of wheat he fills you. He sends forth his command to the earth; swiftly runs his word! (R)

He has proclaimed his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. He has not done thus for any other nation; his ordinances he has not made known to them. (R)

SECOND READING (The bread is one, and we, though many, are one body.)

A reading from the first Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians (10:16-17)

Brothers and sisters: 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? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. The Word of the Lord.

R. Thanks be to God.

(Long Form)

SEQUENCE (Lauda Sion)

The sequence Laud, O Zion (Lauda Sion), or the shorter form beginning with the verse Lo! the angel’s food is given may be sung optionally before the Alleluia.

Laud, O Zion, your salvation,

Laud with hymns of exultation,

Christ, your king

And shepherd true:

Bring him all the praise you know,

He is more than you bestow.

Never can you reach his due.

Special theme for glad thanksgiving

Is the quickning and the living

Bread today before you set:

From his hands of old partaken,

As we know, by faith unshaken,

Where the Twelve at supper met.

Full and clear ring out your chanting,

Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,

From your heart let praises burst:

For today the feast is holden,

When the institution olden

Of that supper was rehearsed.

Here the new laws new oblation,

By the new kings revelation,

Ends the form of ancient rite:

Now the new the old effaces,

Truth away the shadow chases,

Light dispels the gloom of night.

What he did at supper seated,

Christ ordained to be repeated,

His memorial neer to cease:

And his rule for guidance taking,

Bread and wine we hallow, making

Thus our sacrifice of peace.

This the truth each Christian learns,

Bread into his flesh he turns,

To his precious blood the wine:

Sight has faild,

Nor thought conceives,

But a dauntless faith believes,

Resting on a powr divine.

Here beneath these signs are hidden

Priceless things to sense forbidden;

Signs, not things are all we see:

Blood is poured and flesh is broken,

Yet in either wondrous token

Christ entire we know to be.

Whoso of this food partakes,

Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;

Christ is whole to all that taste:

Thousands are, as one, receivers,

One, as thousands of believers,

Eats of him who cannot waste.

Bad and good the feast are sharing,

Of what divers dooms preparing,

Endless death, or endless life.

Life to these, to those damnation,

See how like participation

Is with unlike issues rife.

When the sacrament is broken,

Doubt not, but believetis spoken,

That each severd outward token

doth the very whole contain.

Nought the precious gift divides,

Breaking but the sign betides

Jesus still the same abides,

still unbroken does remain.

Lo! the angels food is given

To the pilgrim who has striven;

See the childrens bread from heaven,

which on dogs may not be spent.

Truth the ancient types fulfilling,

Isaac bound, a victim willing,

Paschal lamb, its lifeblood spilling,

manna to the fathers sent.

Very bread, good shepherd, tend us,

Jesus, of your love befriend us,

You refresh us, you defend us,

Your eternal goodness send us

In the land of life to see.

You who all things can and know,

Who on earth such food bestow,

Grant us with your saints, though lowest,

Where the heavnly feast you show,

Fellow heirs and guests to be.

Amen. Alleluia.

(Short Form)

SEQUENCE (Lauda Sion)

Lo! the angels food is given

To the pilgrim who has striven;

See the childrens bread from heaven,

which on dogs may not be spent.

Truth the ancient types fulfilling,

Isaac bound, a victim willing,

Paschal lamb, its lifeblood spilling,

manna to the fathers sent.

Very bread, good shepherd, tend us,

Jesus, of your love befriend us,

You refresh us, you defend us,

Your eternal goodness send us

In the land of life to see.

You who all things can and know,

Who on earth such food bestow,

Grant us with your saints, though lowest,

Where the heavnly feast you show,

Fellow heirs and guests to be.

Amen. Alleluia.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (Jn 6:51)

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord; whoever eats this bread will live forever. (R)

GOSPEL (My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.)

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John (6:51-58)

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds: I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus said to them, Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever. The Gospel of the Lord.

R. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bread of Life

One of the most pleasing aromas for me is the smell of freshly baked bread. In my years growing up around New York City we had neighborhoods where there were bakeries and driving by was always a treat, washed over by the aroma of breads and pastries coming from the oven. There is something about the aroma in a kitchen as a fresh loaf of bread comes from the oven and is cooling – it makes one feel at home. And you are filled with an overpowering craving to slice into this warm, freshly baked bread and slather it with butter or jam.

But there is another experience of craving for bread that comes from one who is starved, for one who has gone hungry for days or longer and would willing eat even stale pieces of the bread crust to try to satisfy their hunger. I have witnessed this form of stark hunger during periods of famine in Africa, or watching homeless children in the frozen reaches of Siberia scrounging through garbage bins searching for something, anything, to eat. This too is a craving for bread.

This craving for bread is what Moses refers to in our first reading, retelling the story of the Israelites who hungered for bread, for food, and the Lord gave them manna – God heard their cries of hunger and nourished them with this bread from heaven. Moses reminds the Israelites that God did this “in order to show [them] that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” What Moses is pointing out is that there is a kind of HUNGER that only God can satisfy. What is this kind of hunger? Have we ever experienced it? 

In these last few months, when we were unable to gather our community for Mass and where people could not receive the Eucharist, the Bread of Life on a weekly or daily basis, and where we had to re-learn the more ancient practice of the spiritual communion, were we not in some way consumed with a hunger for something? Faced with the pandemic, political instability, social distancing, work schedules up-ended, were we not good people searching deeply to find the face of God amidst all of this chaos? Jesus tells the people in the Gospel – and us – “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.” That is an earth-shattering claim. No wonder the Israelites were skeptical? But what about ourselves? How do we understand this challenging phrase?

And what of some of the other parts of our readings today? 

Moses claims that God’s WORD is as important – or even more important – that food for nourishing us!

Jesus claims we must be nourished by his flesh and blood if we wish to have life.

St. Paul claims that by partaking in this eucharistic meal, we are intimately connected one to another.

We need more than ever faith to understand and accept these claims. We have cravings for fulfillment, but only FAITH can help us to recognize and satiate those cravings. 

Brothers and sisters, the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord possesses extraordinary features and powers. When we consume ordinary food, it becomes part of us. But when we eat the Body and Blood of Christ, we are transformed into HIM. This unique bond gives to us not only LIFE but also endures into ETERNAL LIFE. In coming together for the Mass, we are bound together as a community of faith with everyone else who has the same craving and seeks the same nourishment from this food and drink. So that those of us who have come to this Mass searching for meaning from the many struggles, challenges and difficulties of life can through our faith find the answers in the LIFE promised to us in this Eucharistic meal. But we have to always keep in mind here that this bread now glorified in the Risen Lord comes from a Body that was broken, and Blood that was poured out in sacrifice for us. We are given the assurance of this LIFE that has come through death. But it is only through FAITH that we are able to accept what to many others is so hard to grasp. 

At the heart of today’s feast is the fundamental mystery of God’s LOVE for us. From the moment when God created us “in his image” He created within us a craving for the Creator, the source of our life. As St. Augustine so wonderfully wrote, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you.” For weeks and months, our hearts were restless because of our inability to be nourished by the Body and Blood of the Lord; yet we learned to harken back to the time of St. Thomas Aquinas through the practice of the “spiritual communion.” Our hearts have been restless to return to open churches. Our hearts have been restless to feed the craving we have had for the one faith, One Lord, one God and Father of all that we profess. Our hearts have been restless to be able to gather again as a community of faith and be nourished by the Eucharist, to have body and soul satisfied by the Bread of Life. 

As we approach the altar today to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord, let us thank God for this gift of LIFE, this gift of the BREAD OF LIFE that satisfies every human longing and craving, and which nourishes us each and every day for our journey of faith to the Father. 

Prayers

Celebrant: Christ, our Lord, gives us his Body and Blood as real food and drink, so that we may draw life from him. As one eucharistic community, we bring him our prayers.

READER:  For our Holy Father Francis, Bishops and priests, that they may offer this holy sacrifice with reverent devotion, (Pause) LET US PRAY TO THE LORD.

READER: For our society in the world today, that the social meaning of the Eucharist may inspire people to serve Christ in serving the poor, (Pause) LET US PRAY TO THE LORD.

READER: For deeper devotion to Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist, that whether in private or in community, men, women and children may come to adore him, (Pause) LET US PRAY TO THE LORD.

READER: For all of us gathered here today at this Mass, that we may truly “form a single body” as we share in Christ, the living bread from heaven, (Pause) LET US PRAY TO THE LORD.

READER For those nourished in this life by the Eucharist, that they may be raised up on the last day, especially members of our family and our friends who have passed away, (Pause) LET US PRAY TO THE LORD.

CELEBRANT: Almighty God, be favourable to the prayers we offer. Accept them in union with the perfect prayer of your beloved Son, the one acceptable victim and eternal priest, who lives and reign, for ever and ever. (all) AMEN.

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