Sunday Reflection – 31 December – Feast of the Holy Family and the Seventh Day of the Octave
While they were eating, He took some bread, and after a blessing He broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is My body.” And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them and they all drank from it. And He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many..…Mark 14:22-24
The only ritual that Christ asks us to repeat, over and over again, is the Eucharist.
In it we remember Him as broken,
poured out,
empty,
heartbroken,
frightened,
humiliated,
vulnerable,
in anguish.
To celebrate this ritual properly, we need to have in our hearts what Christ has in His at the first Eucharist.
What was He feeling then?
Joy and thanksgiving. Yes. LOVE for those at the table with Him. Surely. But beyond this, His heart felt anguish, deep longing and fear at the prospect of the pain that was now a certainty before intimacy and community could be achieved.
It would perhaps do all of us good, occasionally when we leave the Eucharist, instead of going to a lively meal with the folks, to go off as Jesus did after the first Eucharist, to a lonely place to have an agony in the garden and to sweat some blood as we ask for strength to drink from the real chalice – the chalice of vulnerability.
Occasionally, when St Augustine handed the Eucharist to a communicant, instead of saying, “the Body of Christ”, he would say, “Receive what you are.”
Augustine had perceived, for whatever reason, that the words of consecration, “this is my body, this is my blood”, are intended more to change the people present, than to change bread and wine.
(Fr R Rolheiser – Light for the World)
Lord Jesus Christ we pray…thank You for abiding with us.
May we always reverence the Holy Eucharist, as Your Real Presence amongst us. Amen
AnaStpaul 