Corpus Christi

Feast of the Body and Blood of  Jesus

The Lord feeds his people with finest wheat

Alleluia, Alleluia.

Their hunger is fully satisfied

Alleluia, Alleluia.

Panis Angelicus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4OlTE7El0E

Corpus Christi Procession

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyuGXOFEAbo

Reading from the Gospel of John 6: 51-58

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."

Some thoughts on today's scripture

In Hebrew, the expression “flesh and blood” means the whole being. The reality of Christ’s presence at the Eucharist is beyond our comprehension. We are asked not to understand it, but to experience it.

Jesus has given his own flesh and blood for me personally, on the cross and in the Eucharist. What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?

Jesus here reveals the hospitality of God. Everyone is invited to the divine banquet: what matters is for each of us to foster our relationship with Jesus. Eating his flesh and drinking his blood is not an invitation to cannibalism, as the Jews feared. Instead, in the Eucharist the bread and wine are given a new and awesomely deep meaning: they become the very person of Jesus.

In the Eucharist we deepen our relationship with Jesus, not mechanically but by becoming more and more like him over the years. God gives himself to us, and we try to shape our lives into a loving gift for God.

“Abide in me” is a phrase Jesus uses over and over again. He invites us to take him into ourselves and become one with him. Then we will have real life.

Bread nourishes us, so Jesus uses that term to describe himself. But ‘living’ bread is an effort to reveal more deeply how profoundly he nourishes us. He offers us a relationship in which we can ‘abide’ in security. We need that life-giving relationship more than ever to-day.

What we receive in the small piece of bread or the sip of wine at the Eucharist is the gift of life from Jesus. This is a sharing in the life of God. hand.

‘Eat’, ‘live’ and ‘abide’ are all words that belong to the home. Jesus invites me to bring anything in my life that is unsettled or out of place, that it may find its home in him.

Come

Eat this Bread and Drink this Cup

You will never Hunger or Thirst.