Most Precious Body and Blood of Christ

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Sunday, 3 June 2018 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Exodus 24 : 3-8

Moses came and told the people all the words of YHVH and all His laws. The people replied with one voice : “Everything that YHVH has said, we shall do.”

Moses wrote down all the words of YHVH, then rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve raised stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. He then sent young men from among the sons of Israel to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice bullocks as peace offerings to YHVH.

And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins; and with the other half of the blood he sprinkled the altar. He then took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. They said, “All that YHVH said we shall do and obey.”

Moses then took the blood and sprinkled it on the people saying, “Here is the blood of the Covenant that YHVH has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

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Thursday, 31 May 2018 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi. On this day, we celebrate the very important aspect of our Christian faith, and especially the faith as preserved in our One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, as we believe that the Lord Jesus, Our God and Saviour, has given us His own Body and His own Blood, for the sake of our salvation.

The roots of this exist in the Old Testament, from the time of the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt, when the Lord had mercy on His people, stranded and suffering in Egypt under the tyranny of the Pharaoh and the Egyptians who enslaved them and attempted to exterminate them at occasions. At that time, God sent them Moses, to be their deliverer, through whom He performed ten great plagues that struck at the Egyptians.

The last of the ten plagues was the greatest of all of them. The Lord decreed that all firstborn child of the Egyptians shall be destroyed, because of their Pharaoh’s stubbornness and his refusal to let the people of Israel go free. The Lord sent His Angels of death to scour the whole land of Egypt, and many of the children of the Egyptians, right down to their animals perished on that night.

However, the children of the Israelites were saved and spared from death, as the Lord instructed Moses to tell them to prepare an unblemished lamb for each household, and slaughter it, to prepare and celebrate a Passover worthy of Him, the very first Passover celebrated by the people of God. The lamb’s blood was applied on the doorposts and the lintels of the doors, marking the household as those belonging to God’s people.

Seeing the blood of the lamb splashed across the doorposts, the Angels of death bypassed over their houses, and spared them from death. Ever since, the offering and sacrifice of blood of animals became associated with the grace, mercy and forgiveness of God. In fact, since the very beginning, from the time of Cain and Abel, and from the time of Abraham, the people of God have offered animal sacrifices to God. But it was then in the Book of Leviticus that God prescribed the rules regarding sacrifices, that the priests belonging to the tribe of Levi would offer regular sacrifices for the people of God.

Moses slaughtered and offered the blood of animals when he sealed the Covenant which God made with His people, and the blood was sprinkled onto the Israelites, as a sign of the Covenant sealed by the blood of the lamb and the animals. But that Covenant was broken many times by the people, who were unfaithful, and did not remain true to the Covenant which God had made with them. Instead, they worshipped pagan gods and idols, such as the golden calf, and committed what were wicked in God’s eyes.

Thus, they should have deserved death and destruction, as the punishment for sin is death. Ever since the beginning, when mankind first sinned against God, we should have deserved to be annihilated, for Adam and Eve, our ancestors, have disobeyed God and refused to listen to Him. Instead, they chose to follow and listen to the words of Satan, tempting them to sin. However, the truth is that God loves each and every one of us so much that He was willing to give us a second chance.

That is why, He had mercy on the Israelites when they sinned and disobeyed Him. If we read through the Book of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, as well as the subsequent history of the Israelites in the Book of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings and the Prophets, we can see just how frequent that the people of God disobeyed Him and rebelled against Him. Yet, God Who punished them also showed them mercy and forgiveness.

The priests of the Lord offered daily and regular sacrifices for the sake of the people, with the animal sacrifices and the blood as prescribed in the Book of the Leviticus, and the same laws and regulations, the practices and the sacrifices were passed down for many years and centuries throughout the history of Israel, right down to the time of the New Testament, that is the time when the Lord Jesus, the Saviour of the world, finally came into the world.

And St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews, our second reading today, mentioned how the Lord Jesus is the new and the true High Priest, Who came into the world as the perfect fulfilment of God’s long promised salvation, as the Messiah of the whole race of man. And why did St. Paul refer to the Lord Jesus as the one and true High Priest? That is because the Lord did just exactly as what the priests of old had done, offering sacrifices to God for our sake.

But the Lord Jesus did not just act like any other priests, offering the blood of lambs and other animals. Instead, He offered Himself, as the perfect sacrifice, as the One, the only One through Whom the whole race of man could be saved. He alone is worthy, and His Blood alone is good enough to redeem all of us mankind, something that no blood of animals or lambs could have done.

Unfortunately, there are many of those among us who have doubted the Lord, and they doubted that the Lord gave us His Body to eat and His Blood to drink. There are those among us, who think and argue that the Lord was merely giving us a representation or a symbol of His Body and Blood, instead of the Real and true Body and the true Blood. But Jesus Himself had made it clear in the Gospel of St. John, that unless someone eats of the Body and drinks the Blood of the Son of Man, that is Jesus, they would not have eternal life.

And again, He added that, His Body is real food, and His Blood is real drink. This means that, in the Eucharist, the central focus of our faith, is found the Real Presence of Our Lord Himself, in the bread and wine, transformed in essence and reality into the essence and reality of the Most Precious and Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, respectively. They are not just mere symbols or representations. This is the Lamb of God Himself, the One through Whom God had saved the world.

Through the giving of Himself, Christ has given us all a new hope, one that nothing else in this world can give to us. By dying on the cross and by the outpouring of His Blood, spilled at His crucifixion, He has marked for Himself a people, those who have been called and set aside for God’s purpose, all those who believe in Him and are therefore called as Christians. We believe in Christ Who died on the cross for us, offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice to reconcile us to God, on the Altar of Calvary.

Then, if we look deeper into it, this is why all of us believe that when the priests celebrate the Holy Mass, they are in fact reenacting the same sacrifice performed by Our Lord Jesus Christ. The same sacrifice happens on the Altar, that is exactly the very same sacrifice on the cross of Christ at Calvary. It is not a repeat, or a mere memorial, or merely a celebration, but in fact, by the authority and power that Christ gave to His priests, through their consecrated hands, He has made them ‘Alter Christus’, that is representation of Christ Himself.

At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass therefore, the same singular event of the crucifixion, when the Lamb of God was slaughtered and offered for the sake of our salvation, happened, at every single celebrations of the Mass, and through that, the Body and Blood of the Lord are given to us, a new Covenant which He made with us and sealed with His Blood, and a new Hope that He has granted to us.

Thus, what we see at the Holy Mass, is that the bread and the wine which are brought up and offered by the priests, are transformed, just as the Lord at the Last Supper spoke to His disciples as He passed the bread and wine to them, “This is My Body” and “This is My Blood”. The Body and the Blood of Christ has come unto us, and we receive Christ into ourselves, by the reception of the Most Holy Eucharist, that is Christ’s Body and Blood.

However, let us all now ask ourselves, brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us ask ourselves, just how much we truly believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist. How many of us lack the proper respect and honour due to the Eucharist, knowing that God Himself is truly present? How many of us receive the Eucharist unworthily while in the state of sin, or receiving Him in the way that we are merely going through the motion?

There are accounts of how people who did not believe in the Real Presence, said that they refused or failed to believe simply because, they saw many of us Christians, who did not believe in the Lord’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. Our words may show that we believe, but our actions show otherwise. How can we then expect others to believe when we ourselves do not truly believe and genuinely believe in the Lord’s Real Presence, in His Most Holy Body and Blood?

What do I mean by all these? Many of us casually went up to receive the Eucharist, without proper honour for the Lord, Who has made Himself so small so as to be present in the bread transformed into His Body. By that action, God wanted us to be saved, through the worthy reception of the Eucharist. However, many of us receive the Lord in a state of sin and as unrepentant sinners.

And thus, there are also many of us who blatantly do not believe that God can be present in the bread and wine transformed into His Body and Blood. Our ignorance and apathy is no different from those who did not believe in the Real Presence. Liturgical abuses and the many abuses of the reception of the Most Holy Eucharist happened, and it scandalised our faith and our belief.

Many of those whose account I mentioned earlier refused to believe in the Real Presence, because they said that if that is truly the Lord present in the bread and wine, they would have prostrated themselves and trembled in fear before the Lord’s presence. That is why our apathy and lack of faith caused many others to lose faith too. And what then, can be done in order to resolve this matter?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi, let us all make a new resolution and commit ourselves to a much greater reverence to the Lord truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist. Let us endeavour to lead a holier and more worthy life, worthy of God, by turning ourselves from sin and embracing what God has shown us and taught us.

Let us all be exemplary in our actions, that by our faith and our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, Who has given us His own Body and Blood, for the sake of our salvation, we may be saved from certain destruction, because of our sins. Let us all draw closer to the Lord, and remember that, because we have receive the Lord Himself, physically and really present in the bread and wine, transformed into the substance and reality of His Body and Blood, we have become the Temple of God’s Holy Presence.

And ultimately, each and every one of us as Christians are part of the Church of God, which He Himself has said to be His Body. The Church is the Body of Christ, made from all of us, who are in Communion with one another. The meaning of Holy Communion itself, therefore stemmed from the fact that all of us who worthily receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, are in Communion with each other and are part of the one Body of Christ.

May God therefore be with us all, and may He give us the strength to live worthily of Him, that we may always keep in mind that we have the Lord Himself dwelling in us, in our bodies, in our whole being. May all of us be ever more faithful, day after day, and indeed, united together as one people, in God’s one Church, become one Body, one Spirit in Christ. Amen.

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Thursday, 31 May 2018 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 14 : 12-16, 22-26

At that time, on the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the day when the Passover Lamb was killed, the disciples asked Him, “Where would You have us go to prepare the Passover meal for You?”

So Jesus sent two of His disciples with these instructions, “Go into the city, and there, a man will come to you carrying a jar of water. Follow him to the house he enters and say to the owner, ‘The Master says, Where is the room where I may eat the Passover meal with My disciples?’ Then he will show you a large room upstairs, already arranged and furnished. There, you will prepare for us.”

The disciples went off. When they reached the city, they found everything just as Jesus had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. And He said, “Take this. It is My Body.” Then He took a cup; and after He had given thanks, He passed it to them and they all drank from it.

And He said, “This is My Blood, the Blood of the Covenant, poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not taste the fruit of the vine again, until that day when I drink the new wine in the kingdom of God.”

After singing psalms of praise, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

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Thursday, 31 May 2018 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Hebrews 9 : 11-15

But, now, Christ has appeared, as the High Priest, with regard to the good things of these new times. He passed through a Sanctuary more noble and perfect, not made by hands, that is not created. He did not take with Himself the blood of goats and bulls, but His own Blood, when He entered, once, and for all, into this Sanctuary, after obtaining definitive redemption.

If the sprinkling of people, defiled by sin, with the blood of goats and bulls, or with the ashes of a heifer, provides them with exterior cleanness and holiness, how much more will it be, with the Blood of Christ? He, moved by the eternal Spirit, offered Himself, as an unblemished Victim, to God, and His Blood cleanses us from dead works, so that we may serve the living God.

So, Christ is the Mediator of a new Covenant, or testament. His death made atonement for the sins committed under the old testament, and the promise is handed over, to all who are called to the everlasting inheritance.

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Thursday, 31 May 2018 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 115 : 12-13, 15 and 16bc, 17-18

How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to Me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the Name of the Lord.

It is painful to the Lord to see the death of His faithful. Truly Your servant, Your handmaid’s Son. You have freed Me from My bonds.

I will offer You a thanksgiving sacrifice; I will call on the Name of the Lord. I will carry out My vows to the Lord in the presence of His people.

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Thursday, 31 May 2018 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Exodus 24 : 3-8

Moses came and told the people all the words of YHVH and all His laws. The people replied with one voice : “Everything that YHVH has said, we shall do.”

Moses wrote down all the words of YHVH, then rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve raised stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. He then sent young men from among the sons of Israel to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice bullocks as peace offerings to YHVH.

And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins; and with the other half of the blood he sprinkled the altar. He then took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. They said, “All that YHVH said we shall do and obey.”

Moses then took the blood and sprinkled it on the people saying, “Here is the blood of the Covenant that YHVH has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

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Sunday, 18 June 2017 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

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.

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.

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Sunday, 18 June 2017 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Gospel Reading)

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.”

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Sunday, 18 June 2017 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Second Reading)

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.

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Sunday, 18 June 2017 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Psalm)

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!