Jesus said “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” Jn 6:51-58
Corpus Christi Sunday
When the late Cardinal Vidal was still bishop of Lipa, at one presbyteral meeting his priests in heated discussion were about to punch each other. Without a word, the gentle bishop left the room but returned soon carrying the Blessed Sacrament. He said, “Look at Jesus and let us see if you can still continue to hurt each other.”
I remember the wheel used a vivid symbol of the Holy Eucharist where Jesus is the hub and each communicant as a spoke in the wheel. The nearer one approach the center, the closer he gets to the others. It visually shows what Pope Francis said happens in the Eucharist: COMMUNION and UNION. The pontiff spoke of communion with Christ leading to union with each other. It was the same solution proposed by the late Cardinal to his disputing presbyters.
You are what you eat. If you eat too much sugar, you become diabetic. If you eat too much fat, you acquire high blood. Many of us consume Christ in the host we receive in the holy mass. And yet ask yourself do you also become Christlike? Unfortunately not. Sometimes people who have more prayers are less charitable and more irritable. A wife who attends daily mass arrives home and scolds the children, criticizes the husband, backbites the neighbor. It is a scandal if members of a religious organization in the parish do not follow their priest.
Let us be what we consume. If we all partake of the Body of Christ, then let us all be Body of Christ.
The incident with Cardinal Vidal and his priests happened outside the mass. This tells us that Jesus remains in the Eucharist all the time. How many of us pray to Him in front of the tabernacle where the hosts are kept. Don Bosco often told his students: If you want more graces, visit the Blessed Sacrament more. If you want less, visit less. If you want no grace then do not visit at all. If Jesus stays in the host even after the mass, then the mass never really ends inside the church. The eucharist goes on in each of us to our homes, work and every place we go.
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