20190623
THE MISSIONARY DIMENSION OF THE EUCHARIST
23 JUNE, 2019, Sunday, Corpus Christi
Gen 14 : 18-20
18 And tMelchizedek
king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was upriest
of vGod
Most High.) 19 And he
blessed him and said,
w“Blessed
be Abram by God Most High,
xPossessor2 of heaven and earth;
20 and blessed be God Most High,
who
has delivered your enemies into your hand!”
Psalms 110:1-4
1 qThe Lord says to my Lord:
r“Sit
at my right hand,
suntil
I make your enemies your tfootstool.”
2 The Lord sends forth ufrom
Zion
vyour
mighty scepter.
wRule
in the midst of your enemies!
3 xYour
people will yoffer
themselves freely
on
the day of your zpower,1
in aholy
garments;2
from
the womb of the morning,
the
dew of your
youth will be yours.3
4 bThe Lord has csworn
and
will dnot
change his mind,
e“You
are fa
priest gforever
after
the order of hMelchizedek.”
COR 11:23-26
23 For xI received from the Lord what I also delivered
to you, that ythe Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed
took bread, 24 and when he had
given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for6 you. Do this in remembrance of me.”7 25 In the same way
also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often
as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you
eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death zuntil he comes.
LK 9:11-17
11 When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and
he bwelcomed them and cspoke to them of the kingdom of God and ccured those who had need of healing. 12 Now dthe day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, e“Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding
villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in
a desolate place.” 13 But he said to them, f“You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than gfive loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and
buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were
about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 And they did so,
and had them all sit down. 16 And taking the five
loaves and the two fish, hhe looked up to heaven and isaid a blessing over them. Then he broke the
loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 And they all ate and
were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
THE
MISSIONARY DIMENSION OF THE EUCHARIST
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ GEN
14:18-20; PS 110:1-4; 1 COR 11:23-26; LK 9:11-17 ]
Twice in the
second reading, St Paul recounted what the Lord said to His disciples after
offering the bread and wine, “Do this as a memorial of me.” “This is what I received
from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you: that on the same night that he was
betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it,
and he said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me.’
In the same way he took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new
covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.'”
What does it
mean to “do this as a memorial of me”? For some Christians, they
take these words of Jesus literally, understanding it in today’s terms.
In modern understanding, the word “memorial” simply means calling to mind
something that happened in the past. It is just like celebrating our
anniversaries. When we celebrate an anniversary, we recall what happened
in the past. So, for some Christians, celebrating the Eucharist is simply
a symbolic reenactment of what Jesus did two thousand years ago. If we
celebrate the Eucharist that way, the most we get out of it is just a reminder
of what the Lord has done for us and we are called to do likewise.
But the
celebration of the Eucharist is more than simply an imitation of our Lord, like
we imitate the lives of great men and women, holy saints of God. When the Lord used the word,
“memorial”, He was using it in the context of the Israelites and the
Jews. They too were told by God to celebrate the Passover annually as a
“memorial.” (cf Ex 12:14) In
celebrating the Passover, the Israelites, and then the Jews of each generation,
enter into the same salvific experience of their forefathers when they were
delivered from the slavery of the Egyptians. In other words, they relive
the experience of their ancestors as participants. By so doing, they also
share in their blessings as well.
The Eucharist
is a Christian version of the Memorial of the Passover. It has the same significance
in that the Last Supper we celebrate is not simply a historical recollection of
that event but rather, making present that saving event of our Lord who died on
the cross and rose again present in the Eucharistic sacrifice. It
is the memorial of the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. Hence, we say that
the mass is a memorial because the same sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is made
present today in an unbloody manner so that we too could appropriate the
blessings that were then given at the death of our Lord. For this reason,
too, the mass celebrates the real presence of our Lord. That is why the
Eucharist is not just a symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ. We
believe literally in faith that the bread is the Body of Christ and the wine is
His blood after the consecration at mass. This is what St Paul meant when
he said, “Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and
drink this cup, you are proclaiming his death.”
This
missionary dimension of the Eucharist is brought out in the fact that the word
St Paul used is “proclaiming His death.” Proclamation has the connotation of an
announcement to be made, hence an evangelistic and missionary
endeavor. Proclamation has to do with mission. Indeed, that
is what we say after the consecration of the bread and wine in the “proclamation
of the mystery of faith.” Indeed, it is significant that today’s gospel
on the multiplication of loaves had to be seen in the context of the disciples
just returning from their mission trip and they were tired and hungry.
Jesus invited them to a lonely place to rest and reflect on the wonders of God
but the people sought them out.
How, then, do
we proclaim the mystery of our faith, the passion, death and resurrection of
our Lord? We do this by becoming like Jesus in giving ourselves to
others. “When
the Twelve came to him and said, ‘Send the people away, and they can go to the
villages and farms round about to find lodging and food; for we are in a lonely
place here.’ He replied, ‘Give them something to eat yourselves.'” Most
of the time our love is superficial love. It does not cost us much
sacrifices. It is easy to give things that are not of
ourselves. We can even offer mass, attend daily mass, give donations, but
yet we do not give ourselves wholly to the Lord or to the poor. What the
Lord is asking from us is more than things extraneous to us but to give of
ourselves. For that is what the Eucharist is, the giving of Jesus’ body
and blood. Unlike the Old Covenant priests, they sacrificed an animal as
a holocaust. Jesus in the New Covenant is both the priest and the victim.
He offers nothing less than Himself for the salvation of the world.
Hence, to do
this in memory of our Lord means more than just celebrating the Eucharist as a
ritual but that we also interiorize and make our own the sacrifice that Christ
offered of Himself. When St Paul says that we proclaim His death whenever we eat His
Body and drink His Blood, he was reminding the Christians that the Eucharist is
not just a social gathering, a fellowship among Christians but that we who
celebrate the Eucharist and consume the bread and wine are called to proclaim
His death and resurrection in our lives. Whoever takes part in the
Eucharist, therefore, unites himself to the mystery of our Lord’s death and
becomes His messenger of love and missionary of the good news of
salvation. So to do this in memory of Him is to render present our
Lord in our daily life.
Jesus shows
us the way after the Last Supper by washing the feet of His disciples. He humbled Himself as
a servant, washing the feet of His disciples, anticipating the offering of His
life at His passion that would bring about the forgiveness of sins. He
said to the disciples, “You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for
that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you
also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an
example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” (Jn 13:13-15) This requires us to die to
ourselves. We too must give our body and blood for others in humble
service. Ultimately, it is a call to self-emptying and forgiveness.
How can we
find the strength to do it? By an attitude of thanksgiving. This is
why the mass is called Eucharist, which means ‘thanksgiving’. Unless we are grateful for
the blessings we have received, especially the gift of Jesus Himself in His
passion, death and resurrection, renewed each time when we celebrate the
Eucharist, we will not find the joy of announcing the Good News. That is
why the Church chooses the first reading from Genesis which recounts the story
of Melchizedek and Abram. After winning the battle against the four
kings, Abram was met by Melchizedek king of Salem.
Abram
recognized that his victory over the four kings was due to God’s divine
assistance. Melchizedek
praised and blessed God for Abram in thanksgiving for their deliverance by an
offering of bread and wine. Through Melchizedek, Abram received His
blessings and gave him a tithe of everything, which was a tenth of all his
possessions. This is the basis for the biblical concept of tithing.
Tithing is recommended so that we will always remember that God is the source
of all that we have, we return a portion of we have back to Him.
Only by
recognizing that God is the one who supplies us the strength, can we be
generous in our response. Of course, for the Christians, we see Jesus Christ as the
fulfillment of Melchizedek because Christ is also king and priest who offered
Himself for our salvation by giving us His body and blood through the Eucharist
when bread and wine are offered. Like Abram, we cannot depend on our
strength alone. Jesus asked the disciples to feed the crowd but they felt
constrained and limited by their resources. But such constraints were
overcome when the Lord gave thanks to God using what God had provided for them.
Today, like
the apostles, the Lord needs our hands to distribute the bread of life to many
who are not just materially hungry but living in spiritual poverty. Jesus is that living
bread which came down from heaven, sent by the Father to satisfy our
hunger. We must give them Jesus, the Bread of Life ultimately for
only He can satisfy everyone. Just as Jesus was sent by the
Father so the Lord Jesus commissions us as He did the apostles to break the
bread of life, the Word of God for the world. Indeed, we read that after
the distribution of the food, they gathered back five baskets full of fragments
when all had their fill. They went out with nothing and came back with so
much. They had so little to offer to the crowd but God multiplied and
gave them much more than they gave to Him. Indeed, if we empty ourselves
like the Lord, the Lord can do much with the little that we have. By
emptying ourselves in love and service, we can receive much more than what the
world can offer. We are filled with the joy, love and peace of our Lord.
So as we
celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Church invites us to carry the
Eucharist in solemn procession, so that we can proclaim publicly that Christ is our savior, the
bread of life and that His sacrifice on the cross brings salvation to
all. But the Corpus Christi procession does not end this evening
because every day, as members of Christ’s body, we must carry Him through the
streets that we walk, to our offices, homes and community. We should not
just adore the Eucharist in the Church but see Jesus in our brothers and
sisters. In this way, the Eucharist becomes the basis, source and strength for
us to become missionaries of Christ.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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