June 18, 2025

Dear Parishioners,

Today we celebrate Corpus Christi, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus gives us his body and blood as a gift. The Catechism lists names for this sacrament that highlight different aspects of it. It is called Eucharist, or thanksgiving. It is also called the Lord’s Supper, the Breaking of Bread, the memorial of the Lord’s passion and resurrection, the Holy Sacrifice, the sacred mysteries, the Most Blessed Sacrament, Holy Communion, the bread of angels, bread from heaven, and Holy Mass.

It is impossible to capture the “inexhaustible richness of this sacrament” by simply naming it, and so we look to God’s word for further meaning and understanding. In Genesis, the priest-king Melchizedek brings bread and wine to celebrate Abraham’s victory. He invokes God’s blessing on Abraham and blesses God for his works. The Church sees in this celebratory feast a prefiguration of her own offering of bread and wine in the Eucharist. Jesus is the priest and king who offers the sacrifice on our behalf through the ordained minister. Because we need this offering of sacrifice for sin, one that will finally reconcile us once again to the Father, the one offering and being offered Jesus Christ must be sinless. In this way is one sacrifice sufficient, for all time, and through our participation in it the Eucharist and its merits are extended.

How does this take place? In writing to the Corinthians, Paul relays all that Jesus did on the night he was handed over: taking bread and wine, giving thanks, breaking it, and sharing. Paul concludes, as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. According to the NAB commentary, Paul’s “narrative emphasizes Jesus’ action of self-giving and his double command to repeat his own action.” In this earliest account of the Lord’s Supper, we can already see the Eucharist presented as sacrifice, self-gift, memorial, and sign of the new covenant.

In the Gospel, Jesus miraculously feeds a crowd of five thousand. After speaking to them about the kingdom of God and healing those who need to be cured, Jesus takes five loaves and two fish, blesses them, breaks them, and gives them to the disciples to distribute to the crowd. These actions call to mind his institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

From these readings, we see that the Eucharist is far more than a celebratory meal during which we hear about the kingdom of God and give thanks for the salvific work that Christ performed for us on the cross. It is a participation in Christ’s redemptive work, in which the bread and wine are taken up, along with our works and prayers, to be transformed into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. His body is blessed and broken for us and given to us to share, so that we might be blessed and broken for others, becoming what we receive and proclaiming the death and resurrection of Christ until he comes again in glory. 

God Love Ya,
Fr. Reilly