The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

     The Eucharist - the celebration of Thanksgiving of the Community of Believers and the great gift of that act of thanksgiving, the Body and Blood of Christ with which we are nourished - is the cause of our rejoicing today, on this Feast of Corpus Christi.  This gift unites us to the Living God.  This "communion" sums up the vertical and the horizontal dimension of the gift of Christ Jesus.  Our Holy Father, Benedict, in his Corpus Christ homily reminds us that when we receive communion we eat the bread of the Eucharist, allowing us to enter into communion with the very life of Jesus.  This life "is given to us and for us.  From God, through Jesus, to us: a unique communion is transmitted in the Holy Eucharist."

     The words "communion" and "community" express, from the Latin, the concept that we are "in union with" each other and with God.  We share an intimate bond that is life giving.

     The Holy Father refers to a teaching of Saint Augustine in which he is reminded by Jesus that when we eat food, it becomes assimilated by the body and contributes to its maintenance.  There is a union with the body that is wholesome and life sustaining.  But the Holy Father says "the Eucharist is a different bread: we do not assimilate it, but it assimilates us to itself, so that we become conformed to Jesus Christ and members of his body, one with Him."  We become Christ-like, transformed.

     Our celebration of Eucharist and our reception of Eucharist unites us to Christ and to all whom he places in our path.  We become family, His body, one in Him, in "communion" with each other.  Our common bond, our source of life itself, is Christ Jesus, who said: "I am with you always, until the end of the world" (Mt. 28:20).