Sunday, June 19, 2022
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Food for us pilgrims
As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
Paul speaks to himself, and to me. He speaks to you, and to all of us. We proclaim the death of the Lord. We are God’s hands, as Teresa of Avila might have said. We proclaim the death of the Lord.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
And in so doing, we proclaim the everlasting life of the Lord until he comes as well. Jesus is the body and blood of the Christ. Just as that bread and wine, recently transformed, are the body and blood of Christ.
And as importantly, just as truly, WE are the body and blood of Christ. Come and eat, Jesus says.
Taking the five loaves and two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven. He said the blessing over the food, broke them into pieces and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied. And when the leftover fragments were picked up, they filled twelve wicker baskets.
As the Donner party starved, some of the survivors took matters into their own hands. Donner Lake is not far from Lake Tahoe, but their images in my mind couldn’t be more different. And the flesh-eating of the Donners is not like the incarnation of Jesus in the bread and wine, the “carna …,” the meat of Jesus’ spirit made human.
Jesus did not come to show human bodies how to be spiritual but the other way around. Every day I grapple with this idea, that I am a spiritual being like Jesus, made in God’s image, a co-creator with eternal spiritual life … striving to be physical.
Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God, and he healed those who needed to be cured.
Didn’t everyone need to be cured? Every one of those spiritual beings on the shore of the Sea of Galilee needed to be healed of their fear, shown how to come to grips with their bodies and their minds, their families, their babies, their grandmothers, and all the strange ways that chronos time turns us into body-slaves so we forget where we’re coming from, and where we’re going. Jesus is reversing the curse in Eden. Now come, he says, eat of the Tree of Life, and live forever.
Give them some food, Jesus told his disciples.
What food? There is nothing here, and we have no money to buy food.
Surely Jesus did not roll his eyes, even if he had wanted to.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Have them sit down in groups of fifty. And just pass out the bread.
If Elijah can do it, Jesus can too. But more to the point, so can we. At least I believe that’s true, somehow. During meals in the Moonies, we sat in circles and broke sandwiches into pieces, then passed the pieces to our neighbors. There was always enough. I lost track of how many pieces I ate, but I knew I felt full. Satisfied. Rich. Loved, and not afraid.
Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine and being a priest of God Most High, he blessed Abram. “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth.” And Abram gave him a tenth of all he had.
(Genesis 14, Psalm 110, 1 Corinthians 11, John 6, Luke 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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