“Jesus said to the crowds: “I am the living bread come 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’” (Jn 6:51). Last week, we explored the central mystery of the Church – the Blessed Trinity. Today, as we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (also known as Corpus Christi), I would like to explore with you another great and important mystery of our faith – the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
At the Last Supper, when Jesus shared his last Passover meal with his apostles, he made a startling proclamation as he passed bread and wine. It was customary for those participating in the Passover to pass around a loaf of unleavened bread and several cups of wine. The unleavened bread recalled the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt when they prepared this bread because they did not have time to allow the bread to rise. The cups of wine were seen as signs of blessing from God. When Jesus passed around bread and wine at the Passover meal that has become to be known as the Last Supper, however, he made a startling revelation. We hear in today’s second reading from the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, “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). Whereas God had instructed the Israelites to eat unleavened bread so that they could be strengthened in preparation for their escape from Egypt and their journey to the Promised Land, Jesus offers his own body and blood to nourish us on our life journey to heaven!
In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus declare: “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” (Jn 6:51). And, as he shared the cup with his disciples, he made an even more startling pronouncement, as we hear proclaimed so clearly in the Gospel of Mark: “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for the many” (Mark 14:24). It must have taken a tremendous act of faith for the disciples to drink of this chalice. They were forbidden to drink blood, since it represented the life force of the creature from which the blood was drawn. And yet, they drank of the chalice because they put their trust in Jesus. The cup of blessing, which was associated with the Old Covenant at Mt. Sinai, had become the cup of the New Covenant which Jesus Christ was to ratify by his crucifixion and resurrection.
From the time of the first Christians, belief in the consecrated bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ has been the foundation of the Eucharistic celebration. The two questions that people frequently ask about this mystery are: what happens to the bread and wine when it becomes the body and blood of Christ and how can it happen? The Council of Trent declares that “by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of His blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly named transubstantiation” (DS, 1642). In other words, although the bread and wine continue to appear and taste like bread and wine, they are substantially changed and are no longer bread and wine but the body and blood of Christ, truly God present in our midst. And how can this happen? And, as St. Ambrose explained so well, “it is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.” The universe was created through the Word of God. And, as we hear proclaimed so poetically in the beginning of the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ is the Word of God. If the Word of God can give everything their original nature in creating them, he can certainly change their nature by his word as well!
The reality of the Body and Blood of Christ is also very important to our understanding of the Church, which is also called the “Body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27). We who are baptized into the mystical Body of Christ and who receive the body and blood of Christ become the Body of Christ. When the faithful receive Holy Communion, the priest, deacon, or extraordinary minister of Holy Communion declares: “The Body of Christ.” He/she does not say, “This is the Body of Christ,” as if to indicate that the consecrated host alone is the body of Christ. Rather, as he/she presents the consecrated host to the communicant, he/she declares “The Body of Christ,” recognizing that the body of Christ resides in both the sacred species being presented and the faithful community that gathers in Christ’s name.
Whenever we receive Holy Communion, we do well to reflect on this sacred mystery, the “source and summit” of our faith and our worship. Let us live this reality worthily, as we receive the Body and Blood of Christ often!