{"id":782,"date":"2019-06-19T08:32:17","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T08:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=782"},"modified":"2019-06-19T08:34:14","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T08:34:14","slug":"reflection-23-june-2019-the-body-and-blood-of-christ-corpus-christi-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=782","title":{"rendered":"Reflection 23 June 2019 The Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) (C)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Bible in Dialogue with Questions of the Day: <\/strong>The Message of the Eucharist Today<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

 The Eucharist\nhas been at the source and centre of Christianity down through the ages, and\nstill remains so. Reflection on it brings to mind many demands of Christian\nliving, as many as belief in the living Christ himself does. Instituted at the\nLast Supper, the last of his meals with followers, it recalls the many meals\nduring his life and the significance of these, eating with the marginalized and\nthe outcast. In Mark\u2019s gospel, after the multiplications of the loaves, in a\njourney across the Sea of Galilee the\nevangelist notes that the apostles had forgotten to bring bread with them,\nhaving only one loaf. Jesus warns of the danger of certain leaven (yeast). The\napostles think that he is referring to their lack of bread. Jesus reminds them\nof his multiplication of the loaves, and of their lack of understanding of the\nsignificance of the miracle (Mark 8:14-21). It is a curious text, but the point\nseems to be that Jesus is calling on his apostles (and the church) to reflect\non the miracles of the leaves, his meals, eventually the bread and wine become\nEucharist and their significance as a signs and pledge of his saving and\nencouraging presence with the church, in times of need and always. There are so\nmany aspects of the Eucharistic mystery that call for reflection.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

            The 2012 50th Eucharistic\nInternational Congress in Dublin\nhad as its theme \u201cThe Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another\u201d.\nThe theme reminds us of the place of the living Christ in the Eucharist as a\nsource of personal union, communion, with God and with one another, Christ\u2019s\nbrothers and sisters.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

            The real presence of Christ under\nthe species of bread and wine is a mystery, to be understood by faith. Already\nin Christ\u2019s day, as represented in John\u2019s Gospel, his Jewish listeners\nobjected: \u201cHow can this man give us his flesh to eat?\u201d Jesus replies insisting\non his teaching. When many of his disciples said; \u201cThis is a hard teaching; who\ncan listen to it?\u201d among other points Jesus replies: \u201cWhat if you were to see\nthe Sin of Man ascending where he was before?\u201d (John 6:52-65). We grasp the\nmystery of his Eucharistic presence better when we consider it in the context\nof Jesus, true man and true God, his ascent into heaven, and enthronement at\nGod\u2019s right hand. Down the centuries the Church has taken Jesus\u2019 words on the\nbread and wine as his body and blood literally and lived with the mystery, a\nmystery as ever hard to put in human words. She has refused the view that the\nbread and wine only represent <\/em>the\nbody and blood of Christ. At the consecration there is a transformation, in\nsome way, of the elements bread and wine involved. Her belief was incarnated in\nthe respect for the bread and wine after the consecration, in the reservation\nof the Blessed Sacrament and in Eucharistic devotion. These were the manners in\nwhich the faithful expressed, and continue to express, their faith in Christ\u2019s\nEucharistic presence. When the belief was challenged by Berengarius, the Church\nformally responded in 1079 that at the consecration the bread and wine were\nsubstantially changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. In the Fourth Lateran\nCouncil (1215) this change was referred to as transubstantiation. The Council\nof Trent (1551) took up the question once again at the Reformation affirming\nthat this change at the consecration the \u201choly Catholic Church properly and\nappropriately calls transubstantiation\u201d, words repeated in the more recent\n(1994) Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/em>.\n(paragraph 1376).Such Christian and Catholic beliefs as \u201cconsubstantial\u201d and\n\u201ctransubstantiation\u201d, not being words current in ordinary discourse, should not\nbe the subjects of popular opinion polls. They are terms chosen by the Church\nto make clear her position on certain mysteries.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

            Questions are still being asked, by\nthe young and not so young at to how we can deny the evidence of our eyes that\nafter the consecration of the elements the bread is not bread but the Body of\nChrist and the wine not wine but the Blood of Christ. The question and the\nreply to it are old, candidly perceived and reflected on in the light of faith.\nWe have a clear instance of this in the catechesis addressed to the newly\nbaptised in the Jerusalem\n Church in the fourth\ncentury by its religious leader. In this it is stated that after the\nconsecration we see the bread and it looks as before, but then we recall\nChrist\u2019s words \u201cThis is my Body\u201d, and can we deny this?. Similarly with the\nwine, and Christ\u2019s word\u2019s: \u201cThis is my Blood\u201d. Can we deny this?. Thus is has\nbeen down the ages, and is today. We are in the present of a mystery. We admit\nour sight and profess our faith.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bible in Dialogue with Questions of the Day: The Message of the Eucharist Today  The Eucharist has been at the source and centre of Christianity down through the ages, … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}