June 6, 2021
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Bloody of Christ (a.k.a. Corpus Christi) on June 6, 2021, at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Exodus 24:3-8; Psalm 116; Hebrews 9:11-15; and Mark 14:12-16, 22-26.
The full title of today’s feast is “the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.” Today’s readings concentrate on blood, and it’s OK if that freaks us out. What we think about blood today, and what our Jewish ancestors thought about blood 3200 years ago, are very different.
The early Israelites saw blood as sacred. So many of the laws in Leviticus – about animals, food, purity, and health – revolved around the belief that all blood belonged to God. It was the source of life. When any two tribes in the ancient Middle East made a covenant with one another, they used blood to seal the deal.
When we hear in Exodus today about the Israelites being sprinkled with blood to signify their acceptance of God’s covenant, or when we hear Hebrews comparing Christ’s sacrifice to the Jewish high priest sprinkling goat’s blood on the ark of the covenant, let’s not think of the violent, big-box-office movies of today. Let’s envision rituals of purification, sanctification, and renewal. For through Christ’s Most Precious Body and Blood, we are purified. We are sanctified. We renew our commitment to God’s covenant with us. Let us pray for God’s continuing mercy.
Lord Jesus, your Blood is the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
Lord have mercy.
Christ Jesus, you feed us with your Body and Blood. Christ, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, your Holy Spirit is the life source that flows through the vine and the branches. Lord, have mercy.
Our first and second readings feel foreign to our lived experience. The point is not about the blood itself; it’s about the covenant with God that the blood represents.
Most of us are familiar with the context of the Exodus reading. It takes place after Moses receives the Law from God on Mt. Sinai, comes down the mountain and tells the people about it, and stays up all night to write it down. The Israelites understand that the Law is their covenant with God. If the people assent to follow God’s Law, God will continue to be their God. Moses then assembles the people in a ritual of acclamation. They shout aloud in unison, “All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do!”
Hebrews references the rituals associated with holiest day of the year, the day of atonement. For 3,000 years, Yom Kippur has been the day for all individual Jews – and for the entire Jewish community as a whole – to atone for their sins. It is a day of fasting and abstaining from all normal human activities. On Yom Kippur in the ancient days at the Jerusalem temple, the high priest presented two goats to the people at the door of the tabernacle. They designated one of them as “The Lord’s Goat,” and slaughtered it. After that, for the only moment in the whole year, the high priest entered the holy of holies – the exact location where tradition says that God confirmed his covenant with Abraham, and the location of the ark that held the tablets on which Moses had written down the Law. The high priest then sprinkled the lid of the ark, called the “mercy seat,” with the blood of the Lord’s Goat, recommitting the people to their covenant with God. Later that day, the high priest confessed the sins of the people and symbolically placed them on the head of the other goat, called the scapegoat. The scapegoat was then sent into the wilderness, never to be seen again, carrying off the sins of the people.
With all that in mind, let’s pray again with part of our second reading:
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.
Does this make more sense now?
The idea of covenant is central to our faith as Christians, too. After Jesus ascended to the Father and the disciples received the Holy Spirit, they had to figure out how they would renew their commitment to Jesus’ Great Commission in their weekly gatherings. Of all the things that Jesus did while he was on earth, the disciples chose to focus on Jesus’ words and actions recounted in just five verses of Mark’s gospel. “This is my body…. This is my blood of the covenant.”
Every time we gather in person or online for Mass, the bread and wine are placed on the altar and are transformed into Christ, Christ our High Priest who has permanently entered God’s sanctuary. We renew our assent to God’s covenant every time we participate in the Eucharist. When we sing or say “Amen” at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer and when we say it again as we receive communion, that is our equivalent to the Israelites shouting at the foot of Mt. Sinai, “All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do!” And then, we take the Bread of Life and Cup of Salvation and call upon the name of the LORD. And as the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ once more touches our lips, we are purified. We are sanctified. We receive the source of life. We are infused with the Holy Spirit.
Many of us are now coming back to receive the Eucharist after perhaps the longest stretch in our lives of not receiving it. Others of us are still participating remotely. Either way, we connect not only with the people in the pews at St. Austin here and now, but with people around the world today, in previous centuries, and in centuries yet to come. Whether we’re participating online or in person, whether we’re participating from downtown Austin or from the other side of the globe, whether it’s our first communion or our four thousandth communion, we connect with the one and only true communion – the Last Supper. We not only affirm our covenant with God. We also receive the grace to recognize that Christ is already present within us, and we receive the grace to continue living out our covenant with God and with one another!
I’m going to conclude with two questions that I’d like you to shout your answers in unison like the ancient Israelites did. Since we’re out of practice shouting in crowds, let me review the answers with you ahead of time. The first response will be “We do!” and the second will be “Amen!”
Do we recommit ourselves to our covenant with God and with one another once again today? We do!
We don’t have to shout that loud when we participate in the Eucharist, but let’s make the effort to live out that spirit each and every time! Amen? Amen!