BIBLE STUDY #93


THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

June 10, 2012



READING 1

EXODUS 24:3-8



When Moses came to the people

and related all the words and ordinances of the LORD,

they all answered with one voice,

"We will do everything that the LORD has told us."

Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and,

rising early the next day,

he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar

and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.

Then, having sent certain young men of the Israelites

to offer holocausts and sacrifice young bulls

as peace offerings to the LORD,

Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls;

the other half he splashed on the altar.

Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people,

who answered, "All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do."

Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying,

"This is the blood of the covenant

that the LORD has made with you

in accordance with all these words of his."



The Word of the Lord



READING 2

HEBREWS 9:11-15



Brothers and sisters:

When Christ came as high priest

of the good things that have come to be,

passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle

not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,

he entered once for all into the sanctuary,

not with the blood of goats and calves

but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.

For if the blood of goats and bulls

and the sprinkling of a heifer's ashes

can sanctify those who are defiled

so that their flesh is cleansed,

how much more will the blood of Christ,

who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,

cleanse our consciences from dead works

to worship the living God.



For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant:

since a death has taken place for deliverance

from transgressions under the first covenant,

those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.



The Word of the Lord



GOSPEL

MARK 14:12-16, 22-26



On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,

when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,

Jesus' disciples said to him,

"Where do you want us to go

and prepare for you to eat the Passover?"

He sent two of his disciples and said to them,

"Go into the city and a man will meet you,

carrying a jar of water.

Follow him.

Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,

'The Teacher says, "Where is my guest room

where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"'

Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.

Make the preparations for us there."

The disciples then went off, entered the city,

and found it just as he had told them;

and they prepared the Passover.



While they were eating,

he took bread, said the blessing,

broke it, gave it to them, and said,

"Take it; this is my body."

Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,

and they all drank from it.

He said to them,

"This is my blood of the covenant,

which will be shed for many.

Amen, I say to you,

I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine

until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."

Then, after singing a hymn,

they went out to the Mount of Olives.



The Gospel of the Lord



Reflection



Today’s gospel reading is from the Last Supper, the night before Jesus died. It mentions the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover: “The Passover commemorated the redemption from slavery and the departure of the Israelites from Egypt by night. It began at sundown after the Passover lamb was sacrificed in the Temple in the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan. With the Passover supper on the same evening was associated the eating of unleavened bread. The latter was continued through Nisan 21, a reminder of the affliction of the Israelites and of the haste surrounding their departure. Praise and thanks to God for his goodness in the past were combined at this dual festival with the hope of future salvation.” (From the footnote to Mark 14:1 in the New American Bible, revised Edition.)



Sending the disciples out to find a room for the Passover is very similar to the scene of finding the colt for his entry to Jerusalem, but Jesus prophetic ability is enhanced because they “found it just as he had told them.” Jesus is a prophet whose words will be fulfilled to the letter.



Jesus refers to himself as a teacher, as he is addressed throughout Mark by disciples, would-be followers, and even adversaries. It seems that Jesus was known to the master of the house referred to in the gospel.



The Greek word translated as guest room is the same word “inn” where Joseph and Mary were turned away because there was no room. This word also refers means a temporary shelter or resting place. During Passover, residents of Jerusalem were expected to make space available for pilgrims to celebrate the meal.



The dining area was usually on the second floor above the noise of the street. The designation of a large room suggests that more than the apostles were present. A furnished room suggests that the room was festive in nature with covered couches to recline on. The coverings on the couches remind us of the cloaks spread on the ground when Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.



Though this meal is in a Passover setting, no mention is made of eating the lamb which is the principle part of the Passover meal. The eating of bread recalls the feeding of the 5,ooo (6:41) and the 4,000 (8:6). The bread is presumably unleavened bread eaten at Passover. Blessing is an act of thanksgiving and praise of God and reflects the Jewish custom of blessing food at the beginning and end of meals. The breaking and sharing of bread is the custom of family members sharing a meal.



What we call the institution narrative (this is my body…this is my blood) are 2 ways of expressing the total self giving of Jesus. This has spawned many interpretations, from those who say the bread and wine is just a remembrance to those who teach real presence and transubstantiation.



The “blood of the covenant” refers to the new covenant that is sealed by the blood of Jesus on the cross, sometimes called the new covenant due to the influence of Luke 22:20 and 1Cor 11:25.



Not drinking, that is fasting, has many meanings: repentance, mourning, preparing for contact with the holy, petitionary prayer, and preparation for the day of the Lord. Fasting is a prophetic symbol of the bridegroom being taken away and indicates the imminent death of Jesus. Jesus will feast again at the messianic banquet of heaven.



In the first reading from Exodus, Moses has given the people God’s words and ordinances, and their sacrifices are the way they ratify their covenant with God. They wrote down God’s words as a sign of their permanence, and Moses offered holocausts and peace offerings, which solidifies the relationship between God and Israel.



In the second reading from Hebrews, Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant because of his sacrificial death. His death delivered us from our sins, which did not happen under the Mosaic covenant. It is only under the new covenant that we obtain the eternal inheritance promised by God





Today’s feast day, The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, dates from the 13th century. It’s had many names over the course of time, but you probably remember it as Corpus Christi. It was celebrated on the Thursday after the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity (Trinity Sunday). It has since been moved to the Sunday after Trinity Sunday.



This feast is largely due to Blessed Juliana of Mount Cornillon, who was born near Liege, Belgium in 1192. She was an orphan at an early age and was educated by Augustinian nuns. She later joined this order and became prioress. She had a great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament from an early age and always wanted a feast in its honor. She had a recurring vision since age 16: the appearance of a bright moon streaked by a dark band. In a dream, our Lord told her the black band denoted the absence of a feast for the Blessed Sacrament.



After she became prioress in 1225, she began to speak to John of Lausanne, a learned canon, and asked him to consult theologians about the feasibility of this feast. One of the men he consulted with was James Panteleon who later became Pope Urban IV who promulgated the Bull Transiturus on September 8, 1264 ordering this feast to be celebrated. Pope Clement V confirmed the Bull in 1312, and since then this has been a feast throughout the Roman Church. Blessed Juliana did not see this feast come into existence since she died in 1258. (Thanks to Butlers Lives of the Saints for this information).



Today’s feast celebrates the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As Catholics, we believe that the Eucharist contains the “body and blood, soul and divinity” of Jesus, that Jesus is truly present in the substance of bread and wine.

The doctrine of the Real Presence asserts that in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, soul and divinity—under the appearances of bread and wine. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists frequently attack this doctrine as "unbiblical," but the Bible is forthright in declaring it (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16–17, 11:23–29; and, most forcefully, John 6:32–71); (from Catholic Answers, copyright 1996-2012, on the internet.

Following are several paragraphs form the Catechism of the Catholic Church concerning the presence of Christ in the Eucharist that you may find interesting and informative (the numbers are paragraph numbers in the catechism):



The presence of Christ by the power of his word and the Holy Spirit



1373 "Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us," is present in many ways to his Church: in his word, in his Church's prayer, "where two or three are gathered in my name, in the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, in the sacraments of which he is the author, in the sacrifice of the Mass, and in the person of the minister. But "he is present . . . most especially in the Eucharistic species."



1374 The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."



1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:

It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God's. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered.

And St. Ambrose says about this conversion:

Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed.... Could not Christ's word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.



1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."



1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.



1378 Worship of the Eucharist. In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. "The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession."



1379 The tabernacle was first intended for the reservation of the Eucharist in a worthy place so that it could be brought to the sick and those absent outside of Mass. As faith in the real presence of Christ in his Eucharist deepened, the Church became conscious of the meaning of silent adoration of the Lord present under the Eucharistic species. It is for this reason that the tabernacle should be located in an especially worthy place in the church and should be constructed in such a way that it emphasizes and manifests the truth of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.



1380 It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us "to the end,"[207] even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us, and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love:

The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration, in contemplation full of faith, and open to making amends for the serious offenses and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease.





Fr. Phil