Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a very great occasion, a core tenet of our Christian faith, that is the belief in the Real Presence of Our Lord Himself in the Eucharist, in the bread and wine used during the Holy Mass, transformed by the will of the Father and the incarnation of the Son, and by the power and descent of the Holy Spirit, into the very substance and essence of Our Lord Himself, truly present in Body, Heart, Mind, Soul and Divinity before us all. This is the Dogma of the Transubstantiation, our firm belief that the bread and wine has been transformed completely into the Lord’s own Presence and Body and Blood, although in terms of appearance they may seem to still have the appearance, feel and taste of bread and wine.
On this day, we remember the same Sacrifice that the Lord Jesus had done at the Cross at Calvary, which is being celebrated at every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, at every Masses celebrated everywhere in the world, from the time of the Apostles, throughout history and up to the present day, and which will continue to be in the future until the end of time. This Holy Sacrifice that the Lord Himself has offered constituted Him as the Eternal High Priest of all, the One True High Priest Who offered on our behalf the only perfect and worthy offering for the atonement of our sins, as it is only by the breaking of the Most Precious Body and the shedding of the Most Precious Blood of the Lamb of God, Our Paschal Lamb, that we can be saved.
In our first reading today, we heard of the passage from the Book of Genesis in which the story of the interaction between Abraham and Melchizedek, the King of Salem was highlighted to us. This happened as Abraham came to settle in the Promised Land of Canaan after he had followed the Lord Who called him to go to the land that He would show him and entrusted to him and his descendants. Abraham trusted in the Lord even though he was childless even until he was close to a hundred years old, and he followed the Lord to where He led him, and in the occasion mentioned in today’s reading, he was just triumphant in a battle against the Canaanite kings in a mission to protect and recover Lot, his cousin that had been captured by those kings.
This figure of Melchizedek, the King of Salem was indeed a mysterious one, as he was described as a high priest of the Lord Most High, and it was told that no one knew his origins or that he was even without a father. In this sense therefore, many saw Melchizedek as a prefigurement of Christ Himself, Our Lord and Saviour, Who would indeed eventually come into this world, to do exactly the same thing that Melchizedek had done in offering the sacrifices to God as the High Priest of all creation. Melchizedek received Abraham’s offerings which the latter made in thanksgiving to God, and offered it on his behalf to the Lord, and this city of Salem that Melchizedek was king of, was indeed likely to be the one and the same as the city of Jerusalem, the city and place where the Lord would accomplish His mission in His Passion, suffering and death on the Cross.
Then, from our second reading today, we heard from the account made by St. Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful people of God in the region of Corinth regarding the events that happened at the moment when the Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist, this perfect gift from God, the Most Holy Sacrament, the manifestation of His Real Presence in the bread and wine which the priests and the other celebrants of the Mass offer to the Lord on our behalf, much like Melchizedek had done for Abraham, and this is done ‘in persona Christi’, as the priests celebrate the Mass in representing Christ Himself, our One and True Eternal High Priest. They do not offer the Mass on their own accord and their own strength, but representing the Lord Who has given us all most generously His own Most Precious Body and Blood for us.
When the Lord told the disciples at the moment of the Last Supper which St. Paul recounted to us, He truly meant every single words that He said, and He truly meant it when He said that the bread He had broken, blessed and shared with the disciples was indeed His Body, and the wine that He has also blessed and passed to be shared with the disciples was indeed His Blood. The Lord did not say that those were merely symbolic or representative, or a memorial or any of those sorts, replicating or resembling His Body and Blood. What He said, as affirmed further by St. Paul the Apostle and by the teaching of the early Church fathers, is that the bread and wine truly became the very Real Presence of the Lord, and are indeed the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of the Lord, through the actions of the priest, in invoking the power of God to enact this.
In our Gospel passage today, we heard then of the Lord feeding all of the multitudes of the five thousand people in the famous miracle that I am sure we are all well familiar with. Through this miracle we can see how the Lord is so loving and compassionate towards us, realising our physical needs just as much as we have our spiritual needs as well. He blessed the five loaves of bread and the two fishes that were presented to Him, breaking them and sharing them, and we heard how miraculously those small amount of food was enough to feed the whole multitude of five thousand people, with plenty of leftovers collected, amounting to twelve whole full baskets worth of food. Many people were happy and satisfied, fully filled by their experience with this miracle.
And after this event, chronologically in the events of the Lord’s ministry, many people came seeking Him and wanting Him to be their King, and the Lord told them that they desired this because they were happy to get the food from all those miraculous multiplication of the loaves of bread and fish, the food that satisfied the physical self and the body. However, the Lord told them then that what is more important is the food that lasts forever, and the true and real Food which He would share to them which would bring them all to the promise of eternal life and true happiness with Him. This was highlighted in the discourse on the Bread of Life in the Gospel of St. John the Apostle, where the Lord Jesus clearly stated to all those who followed Him that He is that Bread of Life which has come down from Heaven.
The Lord also stated, just as He had done in the Last Supper, that His Body is real Food and His Blood is real Drink, and they were to be given to everyone to partake and share, so that all those who partake in the Body and Blood of the Son of God and Son of Man would have eternal life in them. Again, all these highlighted the undeniable and clear fact that what the Lord Himself has instituted at the Last Supper was truly His Most Precious Body and Blood manifested in the bread and wine which He had transformed into the very Essence and Reality of His Body and Blood, His own Presence with them, which we therefore partake and therefore God Himself dwell within us all. And should we wonder if this is possible, we do not have to look far but the miracle that He Himself performed in feeding the five thousand people. What seems impossible for us mankind, is possible for God, as there is nothing impossible for God.
Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all consider carefully how we have believed in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Most Holy Eucharist. The sad truth and reality facing our Church today is the ever dwindling faith that many Catholics are exhibiting towards the Real Presence in many parts around the world, especially in the places in Europe and the Americas where the Christian faith used to be predominant and strongly embraced by the people. This is then also linked to the ever rapidly dwindling attendance and participation in the Masses and other liturgical events and activities of the Church. If we start losing our faith and belief in the Real Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist, then sooner or later, we will also grow detached and be easily distracted by the many temptations and pressures around us in this world.
And in the manner of how we treat the Lord in His Real Presence in the Eucharist is also alarming, as many of us no longer have that faith in this important and core tenet of our faith, in the manner how we act nonchalantly in receiving the Holy Eucharist and even in how we are usually so impatient and cannot wait for the Holy Mass to end so that we can continue with our activities and other busy way of living in the world outside there. This is something that we are constantly being reminded of, especially on this Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, that there is a need for all of us as Christians to return once again to the root of our faith in the Holy Eucharist, a faith that is truly centred on the Lord truly present in our midst, with sure hope in His Providence and with a heart full of love for Him and for our fellow brothers and sisters around us.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore seek to renew our commitment to the Lord our God, our most loving Saviour and King, He Who has made Himself available to us all through the Eucharist, His perfect gift of love to all of us, ever tied and linked to the ultimate and most loving Sacrifice that He has performed at the Cross at Calvary. Therefore, every time we come and participate at the Holy Mass, let us all renew our faith and commitment to the Lord in what He has shown and given us through the Most Holy Eucharist from now on, and be the worthy bearers of His truth and love by living our lives in the manner that He has taught us to do, now and always. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 