HOMILY FOR THE SUNDAY OF MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST YEAR A, BY REV. FR. EKESHIRI JUDE EMEKA CSSP.
THEME: THE HOLY EUCHARIST; A GIFT OF LOVE AND A FOOD FOR THE SOUL.
Every human person is made of two different components, the body and the soul. The body is physical and material while the soul is spiritual and immaterial. Each requires food for sustenance and survival. Food ordinarily nourishes the body and gives it more life but the soul is a Spiritual entity and also needs sustenance and nourishment. Even though the body is sustained by food, it can also die because it is corporeal but the soul which survives after the death of the body can only live in eternity only when it is nourished by the Eucharistic food of the body and blood of Christ.
Today, the mother Church celebrates the solemnity of the Most Holy the body and blood of Christ, also known as the corpus Christi. A celebration that stood as the foundation of all Christian worship, because Christ transformed the physical food in the form of bread and wine into His body and blood and gave us as food for the nourishment of our souls. This is the mystery of our faith. That Christ on the night he was betrayed, took bread, said the blessing and gave it to His disciples and says, take this a all of you and eat, this is my body, do this in memory of me.
In the first reading Moses reminded the people of Israel of the wonders of God in their lives and admonished them not to forget how God fed them with manner in the wilderness when they were hungry and how He gave them water to drink in the desert.
St Paul in the second reading speaks of the body of Christ as a communion. That is that which unite all of us Christians into one body the Church. The CCC teaches us that, the Church is always in communion with her members and the body and blood of Christ is what unite all of us.
In the gospel, Jesus said to the Jews: ‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.’ The body and blood of Jesus Christ is life given to the world freely so that we may share in eternity with Him and the Father.
Jesus says that anyone who does not eat His flesh and drink His blood will not have life and will not be raised on the last day. What did we do to deserve this special gift. It was out of His love for humanity that He gave freely this special gift of life.
Unfortunately, we run away from this communion or the Eucharistic feast always when we commit sin. Sin drives us away from participating in this special meal. St Paul made us to understand that, anyone who eat of this flesh and drink of this blood unworthily eats and drink judgment to oneself. It is proper for us to examine ourselves constantly on the manner with which we receive the Holy Eucharist. Do we really prepare ourselves properly before receiving Christ or do we just do it because others are doing it?
Receiving Jesus into your life in the Eucharist should transform you to be a better person in constant communion with the Trinity and to our fellow brothers and sisters. Christ should dwell into a heart that is pure and fit for His dwelling. But, the human heart is wicked and evil. Full of malice, envy, bitterness, theft, immoralities, anger, fornication, pride etc. Examine yourself properly before receiving Jesus so that you don’t receive judgment unto yourself. Christ has established the sacrament of reconciliation for us to make ourselves pure in confession, what is stopping you from going to free yourself from impurities? Make the Holy Eucharist your special meal for your soul’s nourishment and you will have life in you at the resurrection. Peace be with you.
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