Welcome to my annotated commentary on Sunday’s readings. The purpose of my commentary is to give you the background for each reading, a little better understanding of its message and the message that all of the Sunday readings together provide us.
Today’s solemnity – those of us who are my age and older recall it as Corpus Christi – has its origin in the Middle Ages as an expression of the faithful’s devotion to the Blessed Sacrament during a time when very few felt worthy to receive our Lord in Holy Communion due to an overemphasis on Christ’s divinity and our sinfulness. Pope Urban IV made it a universal feast in 1264. It was often celebrated with processions through towns and villages throughout Europe with ornate monstrances holding the consecrated host under a canopy and surrounded by candles. Townsfolk would kneel as the Blessed Sacrament passed to receive a blessing. Do any of you remember those processions? The recent accounts of priests walking through neighborhoods with monstrances during this pandemic were reminiscent of this ancient practice.
Of course, every Catholic Church has a tabernacle where we believe that our Lord is truly present in the form of the consecrated host. The sanctuary lamp burns day and night to signify the Real Presence. Today’s readings offer us reflections on the presence of God in Salvation History; let’s examine them.
Deuteronomy 8: 2 – 3, 14b – 16a
God saved Israel from hunger as they wandered in the desert. Moses reminds them of this in this Sunday’s first reading, which is taken from the Deuteronomic account of Moses’ presentation of God’s commandments to the people in Moab. Let’s read Dt. 4:44-46 and look at maps 2 and 3 to discover where the people were when Moses made this address. This is an excellent example of anamnesis, a remembrance of God’ saving deeds in history. It recalls God feeding the Israelites (cf. Ex 16).
2 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.
3 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 man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.
Not by bread alone…: quoted by our Lord in Matthew 4:4. The sense is: God takes care of those who love him even when natural means seem to fail them. It also refers to the power of God’s word, which is life giving.
4 The clothing did not fall from you in tatters, nor did your feet swell these forty years.
5 So you must realize that the LORD, your God, disciplines you even as a man disciplines his son.
6 “Therefore, keep the commandments of the LORD, your God, by walking in his ways and fearing him.
7 For the LORD, your God, is bringing you into a good country, a land with streams of water, with springs and fountains welling up in the hills and valleys,
8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, of olive trees and of honey,
9 a land where you can eat bread without stint and where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones contain iron and in whose hills you can mine copper.
Iron…copper: these references make it evident that this passage dates well after the time of Moses, since iron and copper were not found in this area until after 900BC.
10 But when you have eaten your fill, you must bless the LORD, your God, for the good country he has given you.
11 Be careful not to forget the LORD, your God, by neglecting his commandments and decrees and statutes which I enjoin on you today:
12 lest, when you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses and lived in them,
13 and have increased your herds and flocks, your silver and gold, and all your property,
14 you then become haughty of heart and unmindful of the LORD, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery;
15 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
seraph: cf. Is 14:29, 30:6; apparently these were serpents that could fly.
Water: cf. Ex. 17 and Nm 20.
16 and fed you in the desert with manna, a food unknown to your fathers, (that he might afflict you and test you, but also make you prosperous in the end.)
God cared for the physical needs of his people as they wandered in the desert. But, Jesus comes to bring spiritual nourishment, as we see in the Gospel.
John 6:51 – 58
In Sunday’s Gospel, we hear a portion of John’s discourse that follows one of the signs that Jesus performed. Remember, in John’s Gospel, there are no miracles, but seven signs, each one pointing to something greater. In the beginning of John 6, we hear about Jesus feeding 5,000, the fourth sign. Beginning with v. 35, we hear a very high Christological presentation of Jesus as the “bread of life.” The verses we hear on Sunday will be a part of that discourse.
51 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.”
bread that I will give is my flesh: up to this point, Jesus has spoken in indirect terms about the “bread of life,” which could have been understood as referring to God’s giving manna to the Israelites in the desert. Now, however, he speaks for the first time of his own flesh being the bread. The true Eucharistic presence is revealed and his teaching takes on a new meaning, one that many cannot accept.
52 The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”
53 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.
eat the flesh of the Son of Man: For John, the Son of Man is he in whom God and humanity meet. So, it is fitting that Jesus should identify the Eucharist with himself as the Son of Man.
drink his blood: If the notion of eating a person’s flesh was repugnant to the Jews, the idea of drinking blood would be even more so, because blood as food was forbidden under the law (cf. Gn 9:4; Dt 12:16).
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
Eats: the verb used in these verses is not the classical Greek verb used of human eating, but that of animal eating: “munch,” “gnaw.” This may be part of John’s emphasis on the reality of the flesh and blood of Jesus (cf John 6:55), but the same verb eventually became the ordinary verb in Greek meaning “eat.”
55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
The repetition in these verses underline the reality that the whole living Christ is received in the Eucharist.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
57 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.
Reception of the Eucharist establishes communion of life between Christ and the Christian, as we shall see emphasized in the next reading.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
John has Jesus refer to the manna in the desert to indicate that it was a type, a precursor to the true bread that comes down from heaven.
Let’s continue to read vv. 60, 66. This was, and is still today, a difficult teaching. Only we Catholics, along with some high Episcopalians, Lutherans and Methodists, accept this teaching. They, however, consider it to be consubstantiation and believe that the bread and wine remain the Body and Blood of our Lord only as long as the congregation is gathered; then it reverts to bread and wine.
1 Corinthians 10:16 – 17
This Sunday, we hear a portion of Paul’s admonition to the people of Corinth to avoid idolatry. You will recall that Corinth was a Greek city and the people worshiped the Greek gods and goddesses. It is in this passage that we hear a very clear teaching about the unifying feature of communion. Let’s read the passage we will hear on Sunday first.
16 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?
cup of blessing: the third ritual cup of the Passover meal, over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, was called the cup of blessing.
bread that we break: the early Christians called the Eucharist the “breaking of the bread (Acts 2:42; Mk 14:22).
17 Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.
Through the eating the bread and drinking the cup, Christians are united to Christ in an intimate fellowship, because Eucharist is Christ’s body and blood.
If we read this passage within the context of the entire teaching against idolatry, it becomes a very strong admonition. Participation in a sacrificial meal is not an indifferent act, for it is communion with false gods! In the sharing of his Body and Blood, the risen Lord invites us to join in the Holy Communion of the Blessed Trinity now in anticipation in our joining in the heavenly banquet forever!