June 22, 2025 Essay: Food For The Work to Which We Are Called
Celebrating the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, we remember that this gift of inestimable value was given to us as food to strengthen us for the work to which we are called as his disciples.
At the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples, all the gospels, except for the gospel of John, portrayed Jesus as offering bread to them that he declared to be his body, and wine that he declared to be his blood. In that moment, they could not have understood what it was that Jesus was offering them. Despite the best efforts of Jesus to prepare them for his imminent suffering and death, the disciples were unable to grasp what Jesus was saying to them. This is why they failed Jesus so miserably at the time of his arrest. They panicked in the face of Jesus’ arrest by armed agents of the Jewish leadership. It was only after his resurrection from the dead that the disciples could begin to comprehend what it was that Jesus left them in his final meal with them.
Through the lens of Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples could see that Jesus had offered the sacrifice of his body and blood on the cross to liberate us from our slavery to sin so as to live in the freedom of God’s sons and daughters. His sacrifice was the result of human sinfulness, but offered in complete freedom by Jesus in conformity to the will of God for him. Having been faithful to the Father even unto death, God raised Jesus from the dead. His victory destroyed the power of sin and death once and for all. In his resurrection, life and love are now, and forever will be, victorious. Recalling their last supper with Jesus, the disciples understood that when they gathered again to remember Jesus, to remember his life and teaching, he would be present to them once more in that gathering, and in a very powerful way in the bread they would break together and in the cup they would share. In the bread that was broken and in the cup that was shared, Jesus was giving them the perpetual food of his body and blood so that they could properly remember him. And the only proper remembrance of Jesus was to make Jesus present in the world through the witness of their lives. In this way, their gathering in remembrance of Jesus would not be a static event, but a dynamic event. It would propel them outward to give courageous witness in the world to all that Jesus lived and taught.
When we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, it is not a private prayer. It is the communal prayer of the Body of Christ of which all the baptized are members. Jesus is present in all who are gathered. He is present in the Word that is proclaimed because Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. He is present in the priest who presides over our gathering and acts in the person of Jesus Christ to unite our prayer in Christ. Jesus then becomes present, through the power of God’s Spirit, in the bread and wine that are offered by all who are gathered to remember him. Fed by Jesus, we are sent forth to be Jesus in the world.
On this day when there are often Eucharistic processions, we should remember that after every celebration of the Eucharist there is a procession in the world. That procession is us! We leave the Church to reveal Jesus, not as a host enshrined in a monstrance, but as a living presence within us who becomes manifest to others by the way we incarnate in our lives his all-inclusive love and mercy, his abiding compassion for all who are in need or suffering.
— Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J., Associate Pastor