The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ celebrates the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. This is the faith of the Church and it always has been. Jesus states in the Gospel of John: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” Jn 6:53.
Early Christians were accused of cannibalism, which can “potentially be linked to [a]… principal Christian ritual, the celebration of the Eucharist. During this part of the service, the ‘body of Christ’ is consumed and his ‘blood’ drunk.” However, the Church Fathers confirmed the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. For example, St. Justin Martyr wrote: “For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food that has been made into the Eucharist by the eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnated Jesus.”
The Church eventually called the change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus transubstantiation. This means that the appearance, taste, texture, smell still remains that of bread and wine, but the reality, or substance, changes into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus. It is no longer bread and wine, but Jesus! The Solemnity of Corpus Christi reaffirms our belief in what Jesus taught and celebrated and passed on to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment