The Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Today is Corpus Christi Sunday or the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which brings us to the Holy Eucharist, a doctrine that is central to the teachings of the Catholic Church and separates us from the 33,000 thousand other Christian brethren. Today’s gospel reading comes from the gospel of Luke 9: 11-17 and is about the feeding of the five thousand.

“11Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God and he healed who needed to be cured. 12 As the day was drawing to a close, the Twelve approached him and said, “Dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms and find lodging and provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.”

13 He said to them, “Give them some food yourselves.” They replied, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have, unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people. 14 Now the men there numbered about five thousand. Then he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty. 15 They did so and made them all sit down.

16 Then taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 They all ate and were satisfied. And when the leftover fragments were picked up, they filled twelve wicker baskets.”

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You may ask, what is the connection between today’s gospel reading and today’s celebration of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ? To bring it to you simplistically, it is that five loaves of bread and two fishes could never feed five thousand people unless God makes a spectacular miracle. Actually, there were more than six thousand people because back in those days, they don’t include women and children when they count the number of people.

Last January, Cebu City played host to the 51st International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) in what was dubbed as the most successful hosting of this Eucharistic event and it could only be because Filipinos know within their hearts that our Lord Jesus Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist that nourishes our spiritual lives.

In the Bread of Life Discourse studies, which we can read in John 6:27, our Lord Jesus Christ said, “Do not work for food that perishes but for food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him, the Father, God, has set his seal.” Therefore, the Holy Eucharist is sealed with the consent of God the Father.

Further on to verse 31 we read, “Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written; ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

So when did the Lord Jesus Christ give us his body and blood to eat? If you still don’t know, it happened during the Last Supper when the Lord Jesus Christ broke the bread and gave it to his disciples and said, “Take this all of you and eat for this is my body…do this in remembrance of me.” Doing is a command of our Lord for he has all the authority given by God the Father.

So we go back to the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6:51 when the Lord Jesus Christ said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” At hearing this, the Jews murmured and talked among themselves saying, “How can this mean give us his flesh to eat?” Then in verse 53 the Lord Jesus said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my book remains in me and I in him.”

Mind you, reading the Bread of Life Discourse in John Chapter 6 is very clear teaching of our Lord Jesus that in order to attain eternal life, we must partake in his body and blood which is truly present in that small white wafer that looks like bread, tastes like bread, but is the Lord Jesus Christ truly present in himself. It is for this reason why our Lord Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary who herself was born without the stain of original sin so that Christ may have a human body,  the very same body that was given to us in the Holy Eucharist which we celebrate today as Corpus Christi.

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