SUNDAY, TENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
Dt 8: 2-3, 14b-16 Ps 147:12-15, 19-20 1 Cor 10:16-17 Jn 6: 51-58
EVERLASTING LOVE OF JESUS
On this feast day of the Body and Blood of Jesus, we reflect on the love of Jesus who gave His life for us through His death and resurrection and is physically present with us in the Holy Eucharist. This feast also reminds us of Jesus’ command to celebrate the sacrament of Holy Eucharist. On the night of the last supper, Jesus taught us the way in which the sacrament should be celebrated, He made himself our food in order to assimilate us to Himself, to make us live His life, to make us live in Him as He himself lives in His Father. Eucharist is a visible sign of an invisible grace instituted by Christ. It is the union of the soul with Christ by love and spiritual nourishment by increasing sanctifying grace.
The Eucharist is truly the sacrament of union and at the same time it is the clearest and most convincing proof that God calls us and pleads with us to come to intimate union with Himself. It is called the mystery of faith. Only faith can make us see God present under the appearance of Bread. When Jesus announced the institution of the Eucharist, many of his disciples were scandalized and some of His disciples who had been following Him went back and walked no more with Him. Faith is a gift from God. We should dispose ourselves by asking for this grace in humble, trusting prayer and by an active practise of faith. The more intense our faith the more it will appear in our attitude towards Jesus.
Eucharist is the source of great hope and confidence in our present life by increasing grace in us. It also increases our charity. With the growth of charity our passions are subdued. St Augustine says, “the increase of charity is the decrease of passion.” If the struggle against a certain fault or temptation sometimes becomes very violent and difficult, if inspite of all our efforts, we do not succeed in overcoming our nature, let us have confidence in the Blessed Sacrament. When Jesus comes to us, He can calm any storm and give us strength to win any kind of battle. Jesus is our hope.
The liturgy speaks about God’s everlasting love for His people, how much He loves them, how He leads the people of Israel forty years through the wilderness, how God feeds his people with manna in the wilderness, how God protects them from the fiery serpents, scorpions and from the thirsty ground, where there was no water, He gave them water from the rock and fed in the wilderness with manna. God loves His people with an everlasting love putting no condition on his love.
In the Gospel, Jesus speaks about His everlasting love in giving himself to be our food and drink. God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son to die on the cross for sinners and Jesus loved sinners so much that He offered His body and blood to be our food on our journey of faith. Jesus gives Himself to us every day in the holy sacrifice to be our companion and love in our daily struggles, to be with us forever not to leave us orphans as unwanted, forgotten but to be our companion all through our life. Lord Jesus, you instituted the sacrament of your Body and Blood because Your love exceeds all words. Burning with love for us, you desired to give yourself to us and took up Your dwelling in the consecrated host entirely and forever; you did this to remain with us forever.
Lord Jesus, you find Your delight in being with us but do we find ours in being with You. Do we who have the privilege of dwelling so near Your altar, perhaps even in your own house, find our delight in being with you? Is it not true that we pay very little attention to preparing ourselves each day as worthily as we can for the Eucharistic Banquet while we allow ourselves to be absorbed in so many things. Jesus comes to us every morning but does He always get a warm, delicate, attentive and loving welcome? He finds the hearts of His friends filled with thousand thoughts, distractions, worldly affections while there is little room for the divine guest. May the Eucharist draw us ever more deeply into the love of Christ, strengthen our faith and charity, and make our whole life a living testimony of His abiding presence.
Response: O Jerusalem, glorify the Lord!
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