Liturgical Colour : White
1 Corinthians 10 : 16-17
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion with the Blood of Christ? And the bread that we break, is it not a communion with the Body of Christ?
The bread is one, and so we, though many, form one body, sharing the one bread.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 147 : 12-13, 14-15, 19-20
Exalt YHVH, o Jerusalem; praise your God, o Zion! For He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your children within you.
He grants peace on your borders and feeds you with the finest grain. He sends His command to the earth and swiftly runs His word.
It is He, Who tells Jacob His words; His laws and decrees, to Israel. This, He has not done for other nations, so His laws remain unknown to them. Alleluia!
Liturgical Colour : White
Deuteronomy 8 : 2-3, 14b-16a
Remember how YHVH, your God, brought you through the desert for forty years. He humbled you, to test you and know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He made you experience want, He made you experience hunger, but He gave you manna to eat which neither you nor your fathers had known, to show you that one does not live on bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the mouth of God.
Do not forget YHVH, your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of slavery. It is He Who has led you across this great and terrible desert, full of fiery serpents and scorpions, an arid land where there is no water. But for you He made water gush forth from the hardest rock. And He fed you in the desert with manna which your fathers did not know.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great occasion of the Solemnity of the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of the Lord, or the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, in which we remember and rejoice in one of the most important tenets and indeed the very core of our faith in the Lord. It is our belief that the Lord has given us His very own Body and His very own Blood for us all His faithful ones, as real food and real drink in the Eucharist.
This is what all of us believe, all of us who believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, that the bread and wine which we use in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been thoroughly and completely transformed, or as the term says it: transubstantiation, into the very essence, and real material of the Body, the Flesh, and the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, presence really in His Body, Soul and Divinity.
This is what we, who adhere to the true Christian faith, as well as our brethren in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches believe in, as separated and distinguished from those who had fallen into the heresy and falsehood of believing that the Lord’s sacrifice in the Mass is merely a symbolic gesture or a remembrance without real meaning and without the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of the Lord.
That is why, all of us believe that the Holy Mass is the highest form of worship, far greater and higher than all of our other participations in the acts of divine worship, for it is in the Holy Mass, more appropriately the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that the priests or the bishops, having been given the same authority by the Lord through His Apostles, acting in persona Christi, united with Christ Himself, offer the same offering of His Body and Blood, as the one He offered as He laid dying on the cross on Good Friday.
What we receive, and what we eat, is no longer a bread, or a chalice of wine, as even though we see the bread and the wine in appearance and in taste, but that is how our human senses perceive them as such. That is because in reality, transcending all senses and realities, the bread we receive and eat, and the wine we drink in some special occasions, have been completely transformed to the full Presence of our Lord, as Jesus Himself had mentioned in the Gospel today.
At that time, Jesus spoke the truth to the people of Israel and to His disciples, that He came into the world, bearing the true and living Bread of heaven. It was not the same with the bread from heaven which came at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, when the Lord fed His people with manna in the desert for forty years. He gave them food in the form of manna to sustain them, but that food, even if they are the bread of Angels, gave no real and complete sustenance unlike the One which Jesus our Lord gave them and all of us.
Jesus Himself said plainly and clearly, that He is the Living Bread Who came from heaven, and all those who do not eat His Body or drink His Blood, has no share of life in Him. And at the Last Supper, at the time when Jesus our Lord according to the tradition of our faith, instituted the Holy Eucharist, which we now celebrate during every celebration of the Holy Mass, also said the same thing, that as He blessed and passed around the bread He broke, He said that the bread is His Body. And He said the same with the chalice of wine, which He said that the wine is His Blood.
Did the Lord say that the bread is merely a ‘symbol’ or ‘representation’ of His Body? Did He say that the wine is merely an ‘image’ or ‘illusion’ of His Blood? No, He did not, brothers and sisters in Christ, and He really meant what He had said. That is why all of us in the Church believe that He is really, truly and completely present, in Body, Soul and Divinity, the wholeness of God in the bread and in the wine in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Indeed, there are those who refused to believe in this truth, but remember, brethren, that the very same response can be seen in the Gospel passage today, as we heard how many of the followers of Jesus left Him because of what He had said about the giving of His Body and Blood to them. The very same doubt that we encounter today has been expressed by the people at that time, ‘How can He give us His Body to eat and His Blood to drink?’.
Those people refused to listen to the truth because it seemed to be unimaginable and disgusting to them that someone had said something of the sort. In fact, the same falsehood was spread by those who would try to bring down the Church in its early years, as misinformations, be it deliberate or unintentional led the Roman authorities to believe that Christians were a group of dangerous sect, not just because they refused to worship the pagan gods and the Emperor, but they were also a cult of cannibals who eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of Jesus.
Yet, that is what we believe, and indeed, while doubt will arise, as even the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord were dismayed and doubtful at what He had said, by saying, ‘Lord, this truth is hard to be accepted, who can believe and accept such truth?’, but we must not be swayed by doubt, and we must truly redouble our faith and devotion to the Lord, Who is truly and really present in the Eucharist. It is really the hard truth, and which we have to accept fully, as Jesus our Lord really did not mince His words when He said it.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why it is important that I bring you to attention to the reality in our Church today. Unlike in the past, when all the faithful ought to receive the Eucharist worthily and properly, when they are not in a state of sin and disgrace, and by kneeling and showing proper respect before Him in the Eucharist, and by receiving Him in the tongue only and not on the hands, nowadays, with the rampant abuse of the option to allow the faithful to receive Him on the hands, and the lack of proper catechism, we end up seeing many of the faithful not treating the Lord with respect, and go through receiving the Eucharist as if going through some regular motion without real meaning and understanding.
Brethren, this is a great scandal of our faith! This is what we need to stop from continuing to happen. We must really restore what is right and proper in this centre tenet of our faith. We can no longer be careless in our adoration and belief in the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Every single particle of the bread of the host, and every single drop of the wine in the chalice, even to the smallest particle, is the Real Presence of Our Lord Himself, present fully in Body, Soul and Divinity.
But nowadays, we treat the Lord in the Eucharist and queueing to receive Him as if we are queueing for free food in a fast food joint, and we do not even receive Him with proper respect while doing so. We want to go through it as quickly as possible, and even get angry when the queue is getting very slow. We are impatient because it ends up making the Holy Mass to get longer, and we cannot wait to return to our daily activities outside the Mass.
That is simply unacceptable, brothers and sisters in Christ, and in reality, it scandalises our faith, in that, there had been a few people, who refused to believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, who commented that they did refuse to believe because they had seen that even us, Catholics, did not seem to believe in this through our actions and the way we come to Him and receive Him at the celebration of the Holy Mass.
How can we expect others to believe in the Lord Who is really present in the Eucharist, if we ourselves treat Him with disdain and lack of respect? How can we expect others to believe in the Real Presence when we do not bow down, kneel and feel unworthy to receive the Lord in the Eucharist, when we approach Him, and when we receive Him improperly while we are still in a state of grievous sin without confession?
Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore today, as we commemorate this great Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us all rediscover our understanding and respect for the Lord Who has given us His own Body and Blood, and for what is that? It is for our salvation, that by eating His Body and Blood, we may share in the life He has brought upon us, by His sacrifice on the cross, and become united to Him in body and soul, and one day may come to share in His divinity, in the glory of His majesty forevermore.
Let us all start from ourselves, by striving to participate more actively and solemnly in the celebration of the Holy Mass, and by properly revering Him in the Eucharist, preferably by receiving Him only on the tongue and not on the hands, so that no particle of the Lord’s Body end up falling to the ground and get trampled on our feet. And also by properly preparing ourselves before receiving Him, knowing that we have sinned through our life’s actions, and how unworthy we are to receive Him, Who has come to us in Body, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist.
Let us all do this, starting from ourselves, and thus by showing our own examples to others, we may create the great ripple effect, leading many, many more people, from our families, to our relatives, to our friends, throughout our communities and societies, that eventually, the whole Church, priests and laity alike, will return to the true reverence and faith in the Lord Jesus, in His Real Presence in the Eucharist, and reject all forms of abuse that had happened in the recent years and decades.
May the Lord, Who is present in the Eucharist, continue to sustain us through the giving of His Body and Blood, that we, who receive Him worthily into our being, may be strengthened by His Presence, and may all of us grow ever more faithful and ever more devoted, that we, the Temple of His Holy Presence, will be deemed worthy of eternal glory with Him forever. May the Lord bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
John 6 : 51-58
Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “I am the Living Bread from heaven; whoever eats of this Bread will live forever. The Bread I shall give is My Flesh, and I will give it for the life of the world.”
The Jews were arguing among themselves, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” So Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. The one who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood lives eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
“My Flesh is really food, and My Blood is truly drink. Those who eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, live in Me, and I in them. Just as the Father, Who is Life, sent Me, and I have life from the Father, so whoever eats Me will have life from Me. This is the Bread from heaven; not like that of your ancestors, who ate and later died. Those who eat this Bread will live forever.”
Liturgical Colour : White
1 Corinthians 10 : 16-17
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion with the Blood of Christ? And the bread that we break, is it not a communion with the Body of Christ?
The bread is one, and so we, though many, form one body, sharing the one bread.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 147 : 12-13, 14-15, 19-20
Exalt YHVH, o Jerusalem; praise your God, o Zion! For He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your children within you.
He grants peace on your borders and feeds you with the finest grain. He sends His command to the earth and swiftly runs His word.
It is He, Who tells Jacob His words; His laws and decrees, to Israel. This, He has not done for other nations, so His laws remain unknown to them. Alleluia!
Liturgical Colour : White
Deuteronomy 8 : 2-3, 14b-16a
Remember how YHVH, your God, brought you through the desert for forty years. He humbled you, to test you and know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He made you experience want, He made you experience hunger, but He gave you manna to eat which neither you nor your fathers had known, to show you that one does not live on bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the mouth of God.
Do not forget YHVH, your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of slavery. It is He Who has led you across this great and terrible desert, full of fiery serpents and scorpions, an arid land where there is no water. But for you He made water gush forth from the hardest rock. And He fed you in the desert with manna which your fathers did not know.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
1 Corinthians 10 : 14-22
Therefore, dear friends, shun the cult of idols. I address you as intelligent persons; judge what I say. The cup of blessings that we bless, is it not a communion with the Blood of Christ? And the bread we break, is it not a communion with the Body of Christ? The bread is one, and so we, though many, form one body, sharing the one bread.
Consider the Israelites. For them, to eat of the victim is to come into communion with its altar. What does all that mean? That the meat is really consecrated to the idol, or that the idol is a being. However, when the pagans offer a sacrifice, the sacrifice goes to the demons, not to God.
I do not want you to come into fellowship with demons. You cannot drink at the same time from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of demons. You cannot share in the table of the Lord and in the table of the demons. Do we want, perhaps, to provoke the jealousy of the Lord? Could we be stronger than He?
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we commemorate the great Solemnity of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi or Corpus Domini. On this great solemnity, which is traditionally also celebrated on the previous week Thursday, we celebrate the very centre of the mysteries of our faith, namely the fact that our Lord and God, had given Himself to us, through the offering of bread and wine which He transformed into the very essence and matter of His own Body and Blood.
And this perfectly summarises our faith in the Real Presence of God in the Eucharist, which we believe to be the complete and real transformation of those elements of bread and wine into God Himself, and not just some mere symbolic representations or memorial of what the Lord had done at the Last Supper. At every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the priest did what Jesus Himself had done at that moment, when He gave His own Body and Blood for the salvation of all those who share in them.
But lest we misunderstand or think wrongly of it, we should look on the common misconception about the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Firstly, indeed the bread and wine which the priests offer in the same manner as the High Priest of God, Melchizedek had offered them, had been transformed completely in matter and substance to that of God Himself, and yet at the same time, visually they remain as bread and wine, and by taste, they still taste like that of bread and wine.
We tend to link and relate what our senses have received and felt with our understanding and comprehension on things that are around us. And that is why, indeed, it is not easy for us to understand and accept that the mere bread and wine is the very same as the Lord, Master and King of all the universe, including that all of us, and how the wholeness of that great Divine being is contained in His entirety, within that small piece of bread or within that small volume of wine.
But it is the same, with how the same Lord and God has become a humble and mere Man, the Lord and Master of all the universe becomes like one of His own creations. It is part of the great mysteries that is our faith, and requires all of us to overcome our doubts and our reluctance to believe in what our Lord has taught us, the truth which He brings us all.
If we read the Gospel today, what Jesus had done there, the famous miracle of the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish, where Jesus multiplied them to fill the stomachs of five thousand men and countless thousands other women and children, and yet still managing to gather twelve basketful of leftover bread, all of these are beyond our normal human comprehension, and yet it shows once again the reality of God, Who He is, and what He is going to do to us and show to us through His love.
By feeding the people, Jesus is showing Himself as a Shepherd, as a loving Father and Lover of us all, that He intends to give us good things and bless us, and through the same love, He established a new and everlasting covenant with us all, not with the blood of animals, goats, lambs or doves, but with the very Blood and essence of His own, the Precious Body and Blood of the Lamb of God, offered and given for us all for our salvation.
In the past, God has established His covenant with mankind many times, and renewed them many times, by the sealing of the covenant with the offering of the fats and blood of lambs and goats on the holy and blessed altars, just as what He had established with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, Moses and all the other figures we knew from the history of our faith, but all these were imperfect offerings and serve only temporarily.
Indeed, as the Epistle to the Hebrews and in the other sources mentioned, when the priests offered the sin offerings of goats and lambs on the altar, they were offering these for themselves, as well as for the sins of the people who had been entrusted to their care. And no amount of animal blood offering and sacrifices can erase the great entirety of the sins and wickedness of all mankind. Only One can do so.
And that one source from where salvation came, was the Lord, and is the Lord our God Himself, Who by His own will and power, came to share in our own humanity, taking up the form of our own flesh and blood, so that by uniting us to Himself in spirit and in the essence of our creation, He may gather us all and bring us to share with Him the glory of His salvation, and the eternal life He brought with Him.
After all, what is more precious than the very Blood of the Lamb of God, Who is flawless and perfect, without blame and holy? It is the only one that can heal us all and free us all from our sins, from all of our faults and iniquities for all eternity. The saints and martyrs as represented in the vision of St. John in the Book of Revelations wore white robes that has been cleansed in the Blood of the Lamb, because they worthily share in the Body and Blood of our Lord, and have been tested, and their faith has been found true and worthy of God.
Thus, it is a reminder to all of us as well. Have we been faithful to God, and have we shared worthily in the Most Precious Body and Blood of our Lord? When we welcome the Lord Himself through the Eucharist into ourselves, in reality, the Lord Himself has come to dwell in us, and we become the Temple and House of our God. And if God dwells in us, certainly, we should make sure that this Temple, that is our body, our mind, heart and soul are clear from filth and fornication.
Henceforth, shall we all reevaluate our lives, all of our actions and deeds? Shall we all remember the things which we have done all these while? Have we kept our Temple of the Lord’s Presence that is our body, mind, heart and soul worthy and in good condition? If we truly believe that Jesus our Lord is truly present in the bread and wine which have been transformed into the very substance and essence of our Lord, should we not think many times before we even contemplate sinning before God?
And if any of us are to doubt Him because we think that in every sacrifice of the Mass, Christ is being made to repeat again and again the sacrifice for the salvation of our souls, as some of those who refused to believe has accused the Church of God, then we ought to know and understand that, the priests, whom God had called and chosen from among us, are all His representatives, who lead all the faithful to offer their prayers and offerings to God, and to unite it with the sacrifice made by our Lord at the Altar of Calvary.
This means that the Holy Mass and the Eucharist we celebrate there is the same sacrifice which Jesus our Lord made at Calvary, when on that day, He laid Himself to be hung on the cross between the heavens and the earth, that by that singular and ultimate offering, God may deliver us all from our sins and from our fate of damnation and annihilation into eternal life.
Therefore, from now on, let us all rejuvenate our devotion to our Lord in the Most Precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Most Holy Eucharist. Let us redouble our efforts in committing ourselves to He Who has given His all, even shedding His Blood for our sake. He has not even hesitated to lay down His life for us, so that we may live.
Let us all devote ourselves to Him and His cause, and from now on, do only things that are in accordance with His will and His ways, that our bodies and hearts, minds and souls may be free from sin and be a worthy House and dwelling place for our God, that we may find place in His salvation. God bless us all. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 