Body and Blood of Christ - Homily 5

 Homily 5 - 2020

For the few of us here in our small group, it’s good to be back, celebrating in flesh and blood. And those of you taking part in this Mass online have a precious opportunity to experience it differently — to reflect quietly on the prayers, to notice the ritual, and to ponder what a three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood, Mass has that an online Mass inevitably lacks.

It is not that the real Mass gives those of us here a more real Jesus than the one we all engage with whenever we pray. There are not different grades, different degrees, of Jesus. There is only one real Jesus. The special thing with Mass is not just Jesus who is here but what he is doing. The Mass is a sacrament through which Jesus, by means of symbols, seeks to draw us into what he is doing.

In John’s Gospel that we read today, Jesus insisted that we eat his flesh and drink his blood. He wants us to allow his humanness, his flesh-and-blood-ness, to nourish and strengthen us to become like him; to become in fact his body. The bread and the wine — the dinner menu — tell us that in symbol, confronting us with the sheer reality, the stark challenge, of it all.

Indeed, the Mass tells us more. In today’s Second Reading, St Paul stressed that the Mass is a shared meal. The Mass is something that we do together, a meal where we all eat a piece of the one loaf and drink from the one cup. It is not just union with Christ — Jesus and me; it is communion— Jesus and us.

The “com” bit is very much what it is about, because a shared meal is something we celebrate; and celebrating serves to deepen our friendship, our harmony. Eucharistic unity is a unique unity based on our common faith in Jesus, and the conviction that Jesus’ way is the way, the only way.

That is what redemption is in miniature: people living together in love — the radical opposite, the reversal, of sin which is essentially disharmony and violence of one kind or another.

“When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again”. Our mutual love proclaims the saving death that unites us … and we begin to taste redemption.