Sunday June 2 2024
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

1st reading: Exodus 24,3-8
Psalm: 115 (116b), 12-13, 15-16ac, 17-18
2rd reading: Hebrews 9,11-15
Gospel: Mark 14,12-16.22-26

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The readings for this feast in the year B in which we are resolutely turn our eyes towards the question of sacrifice. The great revelation that the people of Israel receives is the oneness of God at the same time as the equation: this one God is the Creator of everything... We can say it in the other sense: the Creator of everything is the only God. But this Creator is not inside the world, even if he supports this world "by the word of his power", as the Letter to the Hebrews says (1,3), he is not in this world . 

Thus persists the idea that, to join God, one must cross this border which is death. We cannot see God. We find repeatedly, in Scripture, this worry of the man who has had a manifestation of God and who says: I have seen God, am I going to die? (eg Jg 13,22:XNUMX). In the sacrifices that God gives to his people - since it is through Moses that God regulates worship - the victim offered is generally a large or small animal; it goes from the turtledove to the bull... This animal is offered, either entirely given to God in the burnt offering where it is completely burned, or shared between God - to whom it is entirely given - and man to whom God gives one again. leaves so that he can consume it: it is a way of experiencing this communion with God.

But it is always something other than the man himself that is offered. And in the Bible, we find many times a formal prohibition of sacrificing human beings. The custom existed in the Near East, for example to found a city, of sacrificing a newborn - archaeologists find bones of newborns under the threshold of a city gate, for example. It is an abomination for Israel.

Blood expresses the life that belongs only to God; the blood of the victim is sprinkled both on the altar and on those who offer the sacrifice, thus signifying this alliance that God makes with his people at the price of this offered victim. This is what the book of Exodus reminds us in this episode of the conclusion of the alliance. Moses offers a burnt offering: he offers a sacrifice of peace, then sheds blood by sprinkling both the altar and the people, after reading the Covenant, in particular the Decalogue.

How can man offer himself? In these sacrifices, man communicates, one could say, with what happens in the sacrifice, but it is not himself who is offered. Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of the Eternal Father who became man, offers himself. And we could even say that he is the only one who can offer himself in this way because he is constantly in full communion with God. Jesus is offered by the Father at the same time as he offers himself to the Father. The Father gives us Jesus and Jesus, who shares our humanity in everything similar to us except sin, offers himself to the Father, not only on the Cross, but throughout his life. How is it offered? He offers himself by doing the will of the Father. And we could also say: by bearing with patience the poor sinners that we are. There are a few places in the Gospel where we perceive in Jesus a certain impatience with his apostles who understand nothing. He offers himself out of love: out of love for the Father and out of love for us. He will give himself entirely, not in a suicidal act, but in an act of offering himself in love, in the fullness of charity. 

Benedict XVI, in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, writes this:

In his death on the cross the turning of God against himself is accomplished, in which he gives himself to raise up man and save him - such is love in its most radical form. The gaze turned towards the open side of Christ, of which John speaks (cf. 19,37:1), understands what was the starting point of this Encyclical: “God is love” (4,8 Jn XNUMX:XNUMX). It is there that this truth can be contemplated. And, from there, we must now define what love is. From this perspective, the Christian finds the way to live and to love.

To this act of offering, Jesus gave a lasting presence through the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper. He anticipates his death and resurrection by already giving himself, in that hour, to his disciples, in the bread and in the wine, his body and his blood as new manna (cf. Jn 6,31:33-XNUMX ). If the ancient world had dreamed that deep down, man's true food - what he lives on as a man - was Logos, eternal wisdom, now this Logos has truly become food for us, like love. The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of offering. We not only receive the Logos embodied statically, but we are drawn into the dynamics of its offering. (Deus Caritas is n°12 in fine-13)

In the words of the Eucharistic sacrifice which we will repeat later, the priest pronounces these words: “This is my body given up for you”. Then then on the cup of wine: “This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant which will be shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.” The Body is delivered, the Blood is shed; in the bread and wine we are given the delivered Body and shed Blood of Christ. The bread becomes the delivered Body, that is to say the presence of Christ who gives himself up, the Christ who gives himself as an offering. 

And the precious Blood is the precious Blood shed for the multitude. 

When we come to celebrate the Eucharist, in this great Eucharistic prayer that the priest pronounces, it is for each baptized person, including the priest, to share this offering of Christ, to enter into this offering of Christ, to desire 'to offer with Christ offered. And it is even the grace that we ask for. We ask that, when we are nourished by his Body and Blood, we will be an eternal offering to the glory of the Father. And to answer our prayer, the Father gives us Jesus in communion. 

When I come to Communion, the Church invites me to respond, out loud and not in a worried whisper, out loud: Amen. What do I say “Amen” to? At least three things, but there may be others. 

The first is: Amen, I believe that this bread is indeed the Body of Christ delivered.

The second thing: Amen, I believe that through this bread which has become the Body of Christ delivered, the Lord brings me into communion with the whole Church. To commune with the Body of Christ delivered is to commune with the Church which celebrates the Eucharist.

But a third meaning of this Amen is: Amen, I agree to be ONE with Jesus who gives himself up. And so I agree to offer my life out of love to God the Father, through Jesus, with Him and in Him. And offering one's life to God, in communion with Jesus, is to positively want to love our brothers as Jesus loved us. I come to celebrate the Eucharist and take communion at Mass to offer myself with Jesus in order to love my brothers. That's why I'm here this morning.

When Thérèse contemplates the Blood of Christ, it is in July 1887 on a summer Sunday at the Saint-Pierre cathedral in Lisieux, a pious image - which she calls a “photograph” - protrudes from her Missal and she sees Jesus' arm on the cross from which blood flows... I quote her:

One Sunday while looking at a photograph of Our Lord on the Cross, I was struck by the blood which fell from one of His Divine hands. I felt great pain thinking that this blood was falling to the ground without anyone hurrying. to collect it, and I resolved to stand in spirit at the foot of (the) Cross to receive the Divine dew that flowed from it, understanding that I would then have to spread it on souls... The cry of Jesus on the Cross also resounded continually in my heart: “I am thirsty!” These words ignited in me an unknown and very lively ardor... I wanted to give a drink to my Beloved and I myself felt devoured by the thirst of souls...

Ms A 45v

By contemplating Christ who gives himself up, by contemplating this Body delivered and this Blood shed, Thérèse understands that all this is done for the salvation of all men, and not only for her. So, in this communion that she experiences with Jesus, the desire to work with Jesus for the salvation of all men grows in her heart. And this is what she will come to experience at the Carmel of Lisieux.

The following year, in one of her letters to her sister Pauline (LT 54) – who is Sister Agnès in religion – she calls her sister “the lamb” and she compares herself to a “lamb”. And she speaks of Saint Agnes, who is a martyr, she says:

For the lamb and the lamb you need the palm of Agnes,

That is to say: for you, Pauline, and for me Thérèse, we must aspire to the palm of martyrdom; but she specifies:

if not by blood, it must be by love...

There are two kinds of martyrs in the Church who bring us into communion with the sacrifice of Christ: There is the bloody, violent martyr, which unfortunately brothers and sisters still experience today. 

And then there is the martyrdom of the drip of daily charity lived concretely... I don't know which one is more painful because the bloody martyrdom comes quickly. The martyrdom of charity lasts a lifetime until our last breath. 

It is not up to us to choose the bloody martyr, but we can here and now choose the martyr of charity, that is to say, wanting to love as Jesus loved us, on a daily basis, without ever becoming discouraged.

Amen.