SECOND FIRST HOLY COMMUNION
The Solemnity of the Body & Blood of Christ
Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14B-16A; 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17; John 6: 51-58
Do you believe some things happen by coincidence? I don’t. I believe there are actually very few coincidences in life and that the things we chalk up to “coincidence” are actually the times when God acts but chooses to remain anonymous. Some people call coincidences God instances; others call them God winks.
So . . . because of the COVID-19 pandemic - in the solitude of our locked down homes or behind masked faces and maintained safe social distances, we’ve been praying. We’ve prayed that the coronavirus be eradicated. We’ve prayed for each other’s health and wellbeing. We’ve prayed for our selfless frontliners. We’ve given thanks for the neighbors, friends and family members who have called, texted, emailed or knocked on our door to check up to make sure we were okay. AND . . . we’ve prayed to be able to return to our beloved church, to worship at mass and, most especially, to receive that which we’ve so hungered and thirsted for – to be fed with the Eucharist, our Lord’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.
Well here we are . . . on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Our Lord – Corpus Christi Sunday. And TODAY, our prayer has been answered. TODAY we have the opportunity, the privilege, to once again feast on the great and wondrous gift that our Lord has left us – the Eucharist. TODAY - of all the Sundays of the year - TODAY! Coincidence? I don’t think so. God-instance. God wink. Proof that God has heard the longing of our hearts and has answered our prayers.
So perhaps TODAY is a good day to recapture the mystery, the wonder, the awe, that we once had for the Eucharist, which perhaps over time, as somethings do, has become something we’ve taken for granted, lost an appreciation for and allowed to become ordinary and routine in our lives. Perhaps TODAY we need to go back . . . go back to the day of our First Holy Communion and allow TODAY to be just as special, just as memorable, just as meaningful, just as spiritual, just as transformational as that day was. Perhaps TODAY we should look upon and celebrate as the day of our SECOND First Holy Communion.
And to do that, let’s take a few minutes to remind ourselves of what the Eucharist is all about:
Beginning centuries before Jesus was born, his people, the Jews, celebrated Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to atone for the sins they had committed in the previous year. On Yom Kippur, the blood of a sacrificed animal was sprinkled on the altar and on the people, sign that God was one with the people he had made his own and he was reconciled with them. The Jews still celebrate Yom Kippur, but without the spilling and the splashing of blood. Instead, they recount the story of the earlier sacrifice, to remember it, and they recite the prayers that accompanied that sacrifice.
Centuries before Jesus was born, his people, the Hebrews, at God’s command, on the eve of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, celebrated the first Passover supper, a ritual meal, which God charged them to celebrate every year to remember how the Lord had passed over the homes of the Jews which had been sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed lamb, thus sparing those Jewish homes from the angel of death.
Some 2,000 years ago - at Passover in Jerusalem, Jesus gathered his friends for that same supper on the night before he died. That night, Jesus took the bread of Passover, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to his friends saying, “Take and eat of this: This bread is my body, broken for you, given up for you.” And taking the Passover cup filled with wine he gave thanks again and gave it to his friends saying, "Take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new covenant, poured out for you, for the forgiveness of sins. When you do this: remember me.” And before a day had passed, Jesus, the Lamb of God, was crucified, broken, and his life poured out for us on the Cross.
And now, and still, more than 20 centuries later, we gather around our altar, at the table of our Lord’s Last Supper and we do as Jesus instructed us. We remember his sacrifice on the Cross by blessing, breaking and sharing the Bread of his Life, by blessing and sharing the Cup of his Blood at our altar, in the sacrifice of the Eucharist and remembering the deliverance from sin and death that is ours, deliverance from sin and death, in the Passover of Jesus.
But Jesus didn’t only tell us to remember him in the Eucharist. He promised to be our Eucharist. So when we bless, break and share the bread we offer in thanksgiving, we believe him when he tells us, This bread is my Body. And when we bless and share the cup we offer in thanksgiving, we take him at his word when he tells us, This is the cup of my Blood.
In this sacrament we are not sprinkled, we drink the blood Christ spilled for us on the Cross. He is atonement for our sins and in his Blood we are washed clean not just once a year but every time we eat this bread and drink this cup and proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
In him and in the sacrifice he offered once on the Cross and again now on our altar, we are delivered, forgiven and saved. In Communion with him we are all made one for we are all sharers in the one Bread broken for us, in the one Cup we share.
So TODAY let us approach the Lord’s Table with thanksgiving for what he offers us there is more than we can imagine.
Let us approach the Lord’s Table with humility for none of us deserves what we receive there.
Let us approach the Lord’s Table with reverence for on our altar is laid the very Body and Blood of Christ.
Let us approach the Lord’s Table with all our brokenness for we are about to receive the Lord who heals and mends us.
Let us approach the Lord’s Table with a hunger for life and a thirst for mercy for that is the food the Lord sets before us.
Let us approach the Lord’s Table at which Jesus invites us to intimacy with him, so real and so personal, he instructs us to consume him, to take his flesh and blood into ours, indeed, to digest his presence.
Let us approach the Lord’s Table in a spirit of prayer, for here is food for our souls, here is the Bread of Angels and the Cup of Salvation, here is the Risen Lord, Christ Jesus, whose Body and Blood we take and consume with solemnity, with thanks, and with joy.
Three months . . . It’s been a long time . . . Happy Solemnity of the Body and Blood of our Lord. Happy Corpus Christi Sunday. Happy SECOND First Holy Communion Day!
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