Corpus Christi
Today we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ. The Eucharist is the most intense expression of the Churches identity. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he was using as his foundation the most common human experience: the family meal. At the family meal we not only receive the essential nourishment to keep us alive and energetic. Over the family meal we also strengthen family bonds; we build up one another, encouraging those who are downcast, forgiving those who have offended us, and accepting forgiveness from those whom we ourselves have offended. At the family meal, problems are ironed out and hurts healed. We are most intensely a family when we sit down to the Sunday dinner. Meals are not merely family affairs. Meals are the focal points of community celebrations. We celebrate events through having a meal together. In this context, the meal we will be most familiar with is the wedding meal. Through a meal we celebrate this significant event in our community. Even those who are not present are involved. The custom still exists in many places of sending a piece of the wedding cake to those who were unable to make it to the celebration itself. The meal is used to draw people into the event, either physically or symbolically.
The Eucharist is layered with different levels of meaning. At Mass each Sunday we try to unpack its individual layers and apply the particular layer appropriate to our experiences in the week gone by. But on an overall level, the Eucharist is the great symbol of how Christians should live their lives. There are four central movements to the Eucharistic experience: we bake, we bless, we break and we take. We bake. Before celebrating the Eucharist, we must first bake the bread. We must take something to the assembly. We cannot come to the assembly empty-handed, or empty headed. We bring along our experiences of the previous week. We attempt to interpret these events with the mind of Christ. Next we must bless. Now the movement of Christian blessing is not just a pious gesture. It symbolises a whole attitude to life and experience. Blessing and benevolence have the same root. We will be unable to bless unless we have a fundamental Christian disposition. This means, primarily, wishing the very best for our brothers and sisters. Rejoicing with them in their days of happiness and standing beside them in solidarity in their days of sorrow. If we are mean-spirited and ungenerous, then our Eucharistic blessing is a lie, a contradiction, an act of hypocrisy.
The next Eucharistic movement is to break. This is the painful one. Unless we break, we cannot share with our brothers and sisters. This breaking refers to the whole range of life's experiences and activities: our time, our goods, our labour, our experiences, our prayers. The Eucharist challenges us to break these and to share them. For example, the private Mass was to me always a contradiction: If is an act conducted in isolation from the community, it contradicts itself. It is not Eucharistic.
The final Eucharistic movement is to take: We must be prepared to receive from our brothers and sisters. We must recognise the fact that we are men and women who are sorely in need. Our pride must not isolate us from the community. Individualism is a pernicious creed. Every one of us has deep needs. We must permit our brothers and sisters to address those needs. In this way, the building up of the individual and the building up of the community becomes a single act.
Jesus built upon this common human experience. The Eucharist is the family meal of the Christian Community. When family members are Through Holy Communion, the Christian community is made into a community. The unifying factor is Christ himself. By the body of Christ, we are made the body of Christ. "Come forward and receive what you already are." This unity is meant to endure beyond the doors of the Church. St. Augustine had a similar 'take' on the Eucharist. When the priest says the words of dismissal at the end of the Mass, he is really saying: "You who have been made the Body of Christ, go now and live as his body."