Sunday, June 2, 2024 – The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ - Cycle B Readings: Exodus 24:3-8, Psalm 116 “I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord”, Hebrews 9:11-15, Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

                                                  The Meal
     The Eucharist is the sacrament of the presence, but also of the absence, of Christ. It is the meal of thanksgiving to Christ for having remained here as the bread which sustains us on the path of the faith; and it is also the meal of praise to the Father because through the Eucharist he guides us in the present so that we may securely reach our eschatological future. The feast that we celebrate today is the sacrifice of expiation in which Christ is simultaneously priest and victim.
 
Sisters and brothers:
 
1. The Feast of Corpus Christi unfolds in an atmosphere of happiness and recognition because we ponder the infinite beauty of the gift. We carry him in a triumphant procession through our streets as a public profession of faith. In each Eucharist we come together around the altar in order to eat his Body and drink his Blood. It is a vital communion which reaches down to the very roots of our being. We live from him.
 
With Saint Paul we can say: "For me, to live is Christ". John Paul II confessed: "For me, in the span of nearly fifty years of priesthood, the celebration of the Eucharist continues to be the most important and sacred moment. I am fully conscious that I celebrate it in persona Christi. The Holy Mass is absolutely at the center of my life and of my whole day."
 
2. The Eucharistic banquet demands that we realize fraternal communion in charity which unites us beyond the temple and which takes flesh in human relations. Unless acts of solidarity are inspired in the love of God, they be-come mere acts of philanthropy. On the other hand the person who has been feed with the Body and Blood of Christ is capable of giving and transforming. We need to live the virtue of charity that buds forth from Eucharistic Communion in order to thereby reach out to those who are most in need with an attentive and welcoming service in their need. And there are so many who do not have a voice to be heard, and who do not have any political clout which would make others take them into account!
 
3. Let us think of those who hunger physically; but there are other men and women who have no means of feeding their spirit. "Today humanity suffers the most terrible experience of all: Hunger for God and separation from him". For many of our contemporaries, God is something distant and vague, something that almost gets mixed up with the illusory or unreal. Some people are the victims of another's egoism, but others refuse to open their eyes to see the light.
 
We always have to be ready to give and to receive. In order to give we need to be generous; in order to receive it is necessary to be humble. Only those who are generous and humble will be prepared to truly love. Love is communion, true giving of oneself to another.
 
The feast of the Body and Blood of Christ invites us to take part in the Mass, the procession, adoration before the Blessed Sacrament and personal prayer. It is also a day suitable for practicing Christian charity. Do I live the Eucharist with a fraternal spirit? Does each Eucharist help me to grow in friendship, in brotherhood, in closeness to all others who share this same table, such that it leads us to be a parable of unity as Christ taught us?