Fr Luke Macnamara OSB
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, known as Corpus Christi. The focus is on the great gift of the Eucharist. The image that probably first springs to mind for most of us is an intact host in a monstrance. This leads us to associate the Eucharist with perfection. The rounded host has no rough edges. All is harmonious, all is whole. This perfection and harmony contrasts strongly with our world and our experience. We recognise our sins at the beginning of every Mass. We come as
a community of the broken.
Saint Paul speaks of the cup which we bless as being a communion with the blood of Christ and the bread that we break as being a communion with the body of Christ. At this celebration of the Mass, the bread will be broken for us. Christ gives himself up to be broken on the Cross, and this complete gift of self is signalled in the sacrifice of the Mass, the breaking of the bread, and the pouring of the cup. Christ is broken for us because we are broken. He comes to
us as we are, broken individuals, broken families, broken communities. He has accepted to be broken up for us so that we might be made whole through communion with him.
The rounded host in the monstrance is in fact a broken fragment of Christ’s body. The perfection is an illusion. There are many hosts but only one body of Christ. St Paul puts it this way: “The fact that there is only one loaf means that, though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one loaf.” So there is at this Mass only one loaf broken into many pieces, which we will receive. We are many but through ingesting the fragments of the one loaf we are incorporated into Christ and become one body in him. The broken relationships which separate us are as nothing compared to the presence of Christ within us to draw us together into communion with Christ and with each other. Let us not be afraid to acknowledge our brokenness as we approach the Eucharist. It is for this that Christ became broken for us, that we might be made whole.