May 29, Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Cycle C. Readings:
1) Genesis 14:18-20
Psalm 110:1-4
2) 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Gospel: Luke 9:11b-17
One day, just after starting my first job on a parish staff, I went searching for paper stock and wandered into the wrong supply closet, where I stumbled onto the church’s stash of sacramental wine.
I know it’s not really a “stash,” but to me, a recent convert at the time, it seemed like it. I stood staring at several stacks of common corrugated cardboard boxes that contained large bottles of wine — ordered from a wholesale distributor. But I knew the bottles’ secret.
My initial reaction was that I’d exposed them, opened the door on them before they became the blood of Christ. It was like unwittingly finding Superman’s Clark Kent clothes.
This week’s readings recall the covenant of Christ’s body and blood, transformed from ordinary bread and wine and given for our nourishment and salvation. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul recollects Jesus establishing that covenant at the Last Supper.
But the Gospel story of the multiplication of loaves and fish emphasizes the infinite supply of the Lord’s offering. We witness on the mountainside Jesus beginning with a small amount of bread and feeding thousands of his hungry followers. When all were satisfied, there was plenty available for whoever would come later.
The message is that an endless supply line will continue everywhere and forever, as long as people come seeking Jesus.
Since the Last Supper, Christians have provided bread and wine from sources in their own communities throughout the world and throughout the centuries — from vineyards and wheat fields to casks, jars and ovens to bottles and boxes to storehouses and closets.
From there, they are brought to altars, where they are consecrated as Jesus’ body and blood to nourish and save the faithful again and again.
I found one tiny store of ordinary wine in an appropriately unremarkable closet in a church office building. But as I received it in Communion the next Sunday, it was not the same, and neither was I.
— Jean Denton
QUESTIONS:
What goes through your mind during Mass at the moment of the consecration? How do you relate the changed substance of bread and wine with a change in you?
