20240602 THE BLOOD OF CHRIST THAT SAVES HUMANITY
02 June 2024, Sunday, Corpus Christi
First reading | Exodus 24:3-8 © |
This is the blood of the Covenant that the Lord has made with you
Moses went and told the people all the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances. In answer, all the people said with one voice, ‘We will observe all the commands that the Lord has decreed.’ Moses put all the commands of the Lord into writing, and early next morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve standing-stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he directed certain young Israelites to offer holocausts and to immolate bullocks to the Lord as communion sacrifices. Half of the blood Moses took up and put into basins, the other half he cast on the altar. And taking the Book of the Covenant he read it to the listening people, and they said, ‘We will observe all that the Lord has decreed; we will obey.’ Then Moses took the blood and cast it towards the people. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the blood of the Covenant that the Lord has made with you, containing all these rules.’
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 115(116):12-13,15-18 © |
The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the Lord’s name.
How can I repay the Lord
for his goodness to me?
The cup of salvation I will raise;
I will call on the Lord’s name.
The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the Lord’s name.
O precious in the eyes of the Lord
is the death of his faithful.
Your servant, Lord, your servant am I;
you have loosened my bonds.
The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the Lord’s name.
A thanksgiving sacrifice I make;
I will call on the Lord’s name.
My vows to the Lord I will fulfil
before all his people.
The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the Lord’s name.
Second reading | Hebrews 9:11-15 © |
The blood of Christ can purify our inner self
Now Christ has come, as the high priest of all the blessings which were to come. He has passed through the greater, the more perfect tent, which is better than the one made by men’s hands because it is not of this created order; and he has entered the sanctuary once and for all, taking with him not the blood of goats and bull calves, but his own blood, having won an eternal redemption for us. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer are sprinkled on those who have incurred defilement and they restore the holiness of their outward lives; how much more effectively the blood of Christ, who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit, can purify our inner self from dead actions so that we do our service to the living God.
He brings a new covenant, as the mediator, only so that the people who were called to an eternal inheritance may actually receive what was promised: his death took place to cancel the sins that infringed the earlier covenant.
Sequence |
Lauda, Sion
The Sequence may be said or sung in full, or using the shorter form indicated by the asterisked verses.
Sing forth, O Zion, sweetly sing
The praises of thy Shepherd-King,
In hymns and canticles divine;
Dare all thou canst, thou hast no song
Worthy his praises to prolong,
So far surpassing powers like thine.
Today no theme of common praise
Forms the sweet burden of thy lays –
The living, life-dispensing food –
That food which at the sacred board
Unto the brethren twelve our Lord
His parting legacy bestowed.
Then be the anthem clear and strong,
Thy fullest note, thy sweetest song,
The very music of the breast:
For now shines forth the day sublime
That brings remembrance of the time
When Jesus first his table blessed.
Within our new King’s banquet-hall
They meet to keep the festival
That closed the ancient paschal rite:
The old is by the new replaced;
The substance hath the shadow chased;
And rising day dispels the night.
Christ willed what he himself had done
Should be renewed while time should run,
In memory of his parting hour:
Thus, tutored in his school divine,
We consecrate the bread and wine;
And lo – a Host of saving power.
This faith to Christian men is given –
Bread is made flesh by words from heaven:
Into his blood the wine is turned:
What though it baffles nature’s powers
Of sense and sight? This faith of ours
Proves more than nature e’er discerned.
Concealed beneath the two-fold sign,
Meet symbols of the gifts divine,
There lie the mysteries adored:
The living body is our food;
Our drink the ever-precious blood;
In each, one undivided Lord.
Not he that eateth it divides
The sacred food, which whole abides
Unbroken still, nor knows decay;
Be one, or be a thousand fed,
They eat alike that living bread
Which, still received, ne’er wastes away.
The good, the guilty share therein,
With sure increase of grace or sin,
The ghostly life, or ghostly death:
Death to the guilty; to the good
Immortal life. See how one food
Man’s joy or woe accomplisheth.
We break the Sacrament, but bold
And firm thy faith shall keep its hold,
Deem not the whole doth more enfold
Than in the fractured part resides
Deem not that Christ doth broken lie,
’Tis but the sign that meets the eye,
The hidden deep reality
In all its fullness still abides.
– – – – – –
*Behold the bread of angels, sent
For pilgrims in their banishment,
The bread for God’s true children meant,
That may not unto dogs be given:
Oft in the olden types foreshowed;
In Isaac on the altar bowed,
And in the ancient paschal food,
And in the manna sent from heaven.
*Come then, good shepherd, bread divine,
Still show to us thy mercy sign;
Oh, feed us still, still keep us thine;
So may we see thy glories shine
In fields of immortality;
*O thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,
Our present food, our future rest,
Come, make us each thy chosen guest,
Co-heirs of thine, and comrades blest
With saints whose dwelling is with thee.
Amen. Alleluia.
Gospel Acclamation | Jn6:51 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
I am the living bread which has come down from heaven,
says the Lord.
Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.
Alleluia!
Gospel |
Mark 14:12-16,22-26 © |
This is my body; this is my blood
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb was sacrificed, his disciples said to Jesus, ‘Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the passover?’ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the city and you will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him, and say to the owner of the house which he enters, “The Master says: Where is my dining room in which I can eat the passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large upper room furnished with couches, all prepared. Make the preparations for us there.’ The disciples set out and went to the city and found everything as he had told them, and prepared the Passover.
And as they were eating he took some bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to them. ‘Take it,’ he said ‘this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and when he had returned thanks he gave it to them, and all drank from it, and he said to them, ‘This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many. I tell you solemnly, I shall not drink any more wine until the day I drink the new wine in the kingdom of God.’
After psalms had been sung they left for the Mount of Olives.
THE BLOOD OF CHRIST THAT SAVES HUMANITY
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [EX 24:3-8; PS 115:12-13,15-18; HEB 9:11-15; MK 14:12-16, 22-26]
In the gospel after giving the bread to His apostles, Jesus said, “‘Take it,’ he said ‘this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and when he had returned thanks he gave it to them, and all drank from it, and he said to them, ‘This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many.” This year the liturgy invites us to focus primarily on the blood of Christ that saves us from our sins. Why is the blood of Christ necessary for our salvation?
To understand the significance of the blood of Christ, the liturgy brings us back to the time of the Israelites under Moses. Blood was the way to seal a solemn contract. After Moses “told the people all the commands of the Lord and all the ordinances. In answer, all the people said with one voice, ‘We will observe all the commands that the Lord has decreed.'” Blood was then taken from an animal that was sacrificed for the communion sacrifice with the Lord. Blood was both a symbol to seal their commitment to the Covenant, as well as a symbol of communion between God and His people. Hence, when the people made the commitment to the Covenantal Laws, “Moses took the blood and cast it towards the people. ‘This’ he said ‘is the blood of the Covenant that the Lord has made with you, containing all these rules.'”
At the same time, the sacrificial language of blood is clear. To shed one’s blood is to offer one’s life. When a man dies, his blood stops flowing. Blood, therefore, is a symbol of life. Only God can give life. As such, the Israelites are forbidden to drink the blood of animals. Life belongs to God alone. Hence, no one can shed the blood of another fellow human being. But why do we need the blood of an animal, much less the blood of Jesus, to save us from our sins? In truth, it is not so much the blood of an animal that saved the Israelites from their sins, or the blood of Christ that brings about the forgiveness of our sins per se. It does not mean that God is pleased that we sacrifice the blood of an animal or of our Lord in our place so that He can forgive us our sins. Rather, because the blood signifies our communion with God, since blood is life. The sprinkling of the blood symbolizes that we are now in communion with Him.
Of course, in the case of Jesus, the shedding of His blood on the cross is first and foremost, the giving of life to His people. Hence, He said, “This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many.” It is done in reference to the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, which we read in Isaiah 53. By shedding His blood for us, the Lord enables us to be in communion with Him. Hence, the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper was an anticipation and acceptance of the cross in obedience to His Father to reveal to us the gravity of our sins and the depth of His love.
Only by pondering and contemplating on His innocent and vicarious suffering on the cross on account of our sins, can we be moved to repentance and seek union with God. Drinking His blood, therefore, means that we are receiving life from God. Hence, the letter of Hebrews says, “The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer are sprinkled on those who have incurred defilement and they restore the holiness of their outward lives; how much more effectively the blood of Christ, who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit, can purify our inner self from dead actions so that we do our service to the living God.” By coming to grips with what the Lord has done for us and what He has gone through, we are impacted by His vicarious sacrifice for us.
But drinking His cup also means that we are ready to suffer with Him as well, especially when we suffer innocently; that we, too, will use innocent suffering as a means to soften and open the hearts of evil men. This was what happened in the war in Gaza. When people saw thousands of innocent and vulnerable women, children and men suffering the ravages of war, the injuries and the hunger, people in the world began to wake up to the atrocities of war and how blind they have been to their sufferings. Ironically, it took the death of seven aid workers serving in the World Kitchen to awaken the conscience of the political leaders when their own people were killed innocently in the war. There are thousands of other innocent people killed, but the pain and grief was never felt so much until their own people suffered the same fate. This is true of our Lord as well. Until we suffer with Him innocently, we will not know what love and forgiveness entails. It is easy to drink the cup of our Lord at the Eucharist, but this Cup in the bible is often seen as a cup of wrath, of suffering, of shedding one’s blood.
This is why the blood of Jesus is more effective than the blood of the animals, as the letter to the Hebrews emphasized. “He has entered the sanctuary once and for all, taking with him not the blood of goats and bull calves, but his own blood, having won an eternal redemption for us.” Hence, the sacred author of Hebrews says He is the mediator of the New Covenant, because the value of His blood was the gift of Himself. On the cross, Jesus was not just a victim but He was also the priest. In other words, He offered Himself as the concrete manifestation of God’s love and mercy for sinful humanity, inviting us to repent and turn away from our selfishness and evils.
Indeed, what is truly transforming in life is always sacrificial love. This is why the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is linked intimately to His Passion on the Cross, Easter, Pentecost, and the Feast of the Holy Trinity, which we celebrated last Sunday. In all these feasts, we celebrate the love and mercy of God. At Easter, we celebrate Divine Mercy in His resurrection. At Pentecost, we celebrate the outpouring of the love of the Holy Spirit. At the feast of the Holy Trinity, we celebrate the intra-dynamic relationship of God who is love summed up in the Trinitarian relationship. Only because God is love and in perfect relation, we are called and empowered to love like Him and be in harmonious relationship with Him and with our brothers and sisters.
To empower us to love like Him, and to allow His Spirit to live in our hearts, we need to be in communion with Him, by eating His body and drinking His blood. Consequently, it is important that a real participation of His life is involved in a real eating of His body and drinking of His blood. For this reason, it is more than just a symbolic presence of our Lord in the bread and wine – we are truly celebrating the sacrifice of our Lord at every Mass, and through the mystery of transubstantiation, bread and wine is transformed into the body and blood of Christ. As we partake of the bread and wine, we too are transformed in the power of the Holy Spirit. We become one in Him and one with the Church, and through Christ and the Holy Spirit, we are in union with His Father. Indeed, we become what we receive. This is the reason why we should receive the Eucharist every day, so that more and more, we become Jesus in our life.
Today, as we celebrate this feast of the supreme gift of God Himself to us in Christ, and as we join in the procession, we want to be the Eucharist in the world. By carrying the Eucharist in public through the streets, we want to say to the world, we want to be present in their lives. We want them to recognize Jesus in us, to walk where they walk, to suffer with their suffering, to heal them with our love and to console them with our mercy. Indeed, when we love like Jesus in the Eucharist, we will transform lives and give hope to others.
Indeed, the Eucharist is the summit of our faith and the source of our strength as we travel through this life in the valley of tears towards the heavenly kingdom. The Eucharist gives us strength on our journey, and that is why we call it the Viaticum, food for the journey. Spending time in silent adoration before the Lord in the Eucharist will give us the presence of Jesus and most of all, His love and mercy. The Lord will draw us to love Him, and He will inspire us to live our lives fully by giving ourselves in humble service to others, even to the extent of suffering vicariously for sinners and those who oppose us. The Eucharist is the treasure of the Church and so let us treasure it in our hearts and in our life.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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