The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Dear friends!
Blessed Solemnity of Corpus Christ, feast of the Body and Blood of Christ!! Because mysteries are inexhaustible and therefore can be approached from a variety of angles, today I would like to talk about this Mystery from the angle of Connection.
Each of our little lives is in reality not little at all. We are connected with something bigger, something eternal. This is not easy to perceive, sometimes we can have the intuition but it’s still very hard to accept. By nature we tend to look for our own interest because we feel we have been left on our own… The disciples manifest this same dynamic in today’s Gospel reading: “Master, send them on their own, we can’t feed them, there is not enough food for so many… we can’t be worried for so many” (Lk 9:11). This is coming from a vision of scarcity, coming from the fear of lacking, of running out of something, of “fomo”, etc…
But Jesus response is very different. He creates a worldview of abundance, of enough-ness, of more than enough-ness, as we see in the twelve baskets of leftovers. This meal is about Him taking us out from our tiny world and incorporating us (our whole person) into the wholeness of Reality, into Himself. He is inviting us to transition from the vision of an insignificant, self centered and boring existence into the excitement of the universal meaning, the eternal adventure of your existence. And this happens now!! Not in the future, but NOW!! Abundance (In Jesus) happens now, because it overcomes the limits of space and time. Heaven has already begun for those who are in Christ Jesus. Do you believe this?
When the Lord Jesus says, “do this in memory of Me”, He is not only remembering the past. According to the Jewish mindset, what He means is let’s go into “deep memory”. Incorporate your small and tiny memory (e.g. your own childhood, family, teenager, college memories, etc.) into the Memory of the ALL the Body of Christ. Let go of trying to create your identity out of this tiny memory, which will never be enough, where we will feel always unsatisfied, never wonderful, never infinite enough.
The Eucharist seeks to CONNECT you with the all encompassing Universal Christ. Connect your suffering with ALL the suffering since the beginning of time. This is what means to do something in memory of Christ. This happens in prayer, we start connecting in ever wide circles, transcending our parents, race, nationality, country, continent, world, centuries… the circles just keep widening. When we are united with Jesus in the Eucharist, when we receive Him, we are joining the heartbeat of God. Your daily inconveniences are connected with the trials of saints, martyrs as well as many terrible sinners and many souls in purgatory. We are ALL in Christ. Are you ready to see that you are not isolated, and you never will be? Suddenly our little ordinary lives have transcended.
Your life matters eternally to God and to every other person in human history, and every single of your experiences has a universal impact in the Universal Body of Christ. We are invited by Him to know that today!
~Father Remi