THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST – YEAR A
This is undoubtedly the most paradoxical and troubling celebration of Corpus Christi that I have ever experienced. We listen to Jesus affirm that unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, we will not have life. And yet, at least here in the Diocese of Brooklyn, Catholics are forbidden to approach the Eucharistic table because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fortunately, we have a long tradition to draw upon in order to find meaning and guidance during challenging times that seem to us to be without precedent. And a major, even paradigmatic, event in our religious history is the Exodus. That event, which Moses strives to explain to the Israelites just before they enter the Land of Promise, provides the first and guiding theme of the liturgy today.
Like a preacher who is intimately acquainted with his congregation, Moses acknowledges the pain and confusion of the past forty years. A nation-in-the-making that set out with high hopes and expectations of an easy passage from slavery and scarcity to freedom and abundance has experienced a rude awakening. Their journey has involved food shortages that have left them nostalgic for the cucumbers, the leeks, the garlic and onions that were available to them in Egypt. They have encountered venomous snakes that have decimated their population. It has seemed to them that they have just been going around in circles. Moses tells them that he knows all that.
And we do also, because our complaints in the grips of the coronavirus outbreak echo those of the ancient Israelites. In particular, we remember nostalgically the sheer abundance of the Bread from Heaven that is the Eucharist before the pandemic began. We could attend Mass with comparative ease and communicate daily if we wished. Even Catholics whom health and age conditions prevented from coming to church had the Eucharist brought to them by priests, deacons and Special Ministers of the Eucharist. When I found myself hospitalized last winter, I was able to receive Holy Communion every day. For the last three months, however, that nourishment has become unavailable.
So, let us listen carefully to what Moses tells the people to assist them in their understanding of the hardships that have challenged them so severely. First of all, Moses assures the people that God is and has always been in charge. “Remember h for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert.” Even as we feel a terrible void in our spiritual lives because we cannot, for a time, eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, we must never doubt that he is with us at every moment.
Secondly, Moses points out two aspects of the Exodus ordeal. God has not left the people to starve in the desert; instead he has provided an alternate source of nourishment: manna. “He, therefore, let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers…(he) brought forth water from the flinty rock.” No, manna and water were no match for the milk and honey, the meat and sweet wine that lay in the future, or even for the melons, the leeks and cucumbers of the past. But manna and water – with an occasional quail – got them through the forced desert march alive.
“He gave them bread from heaven, containing in itself all delight,” we chant at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. But most of us cannot have that bread from heaven at the moment. Yet, an especially fervent Spiritual Communion can sustain us, perhaps as much or more than a routine Communion that is unaccompanied by fervent prayer and thanksgiving.
And God, in his infinite wisdom, had a plan in mind, all through the seeming craziness of serpents and scorpions and scorching sands. “He let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna… in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” That passage made such an impression on Jesus that he quoted it in refutation of the tempters suggestion that he turn stones into bread.
Yes, our hunger for the Eucharist is painful. But, just perhaps, it might make us more attentive to the Word of God. We may not be able to feed on the Bread of Angels for a while, but the Bible is always at hand. Lectio Divina, the practice of slow, deliberate reading of a passage of Sacred Scripture and meditation on it can be amazingly nourishing – a sort of chicken soup for the soul when solid food is unavailable.
One final thought on this paradoxical Corpus Christi. It is given us by Jesus, himself, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” So many in our midst are bereaved. Loved ones have been taken in numbers far surpassing the pre-pandemic days, and the pain of their loss is sharpened by our inability to draw close to morners in gestures of comfort and support. We must not forget that the saints have referred to the Eucharist as the Medicine of Immortality. St. Thomas Aquinas hymned it as “the pledge of future glory.” Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them.”