Sunday the 7th of June 2026 - The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ - Corpus Christi

Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a/ Ps 147/ 1 Corinthians 10:16-17/ John 6:51-58

When we think about our families, we sometimes see that they may have become scattered far from home. Children grow up, move away, form their own relationships and families. There can be family splits and disagreements, deep hurts that are hard to heal. Relatives who have not spoken in ages. Every so often there comes an opportunity for a family to gather, it might be at Christmas, a family wedding, funeral, or a significant anniversary or event. The family returns to the same table, gathering for the same meal. Often, however deep the divisions might have grown, these gatherings serve to reunite a divided family. It might not repair all the damage and division but in sharing the meal, breaking bread together, they remember that they belong to each other, they are one family. This also highlights the value of the smaller scale and more frequent occasions when a family gathers at home after a work and school day and share their evening meal together. I mention this today because this is what the Eucharist does for us. As we celebrate today the Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi, we gather as a family that is wounded and divided in many ways, and the Lord sets one table, with one bread, and says, come, eat, and become one again. This is communion.

The readings today span the history of salvation, from manna appearing in the wilderness, to Jesus standing in the synagogue at Capernaum declaring, " I am the living bread that came down from heaven," to Saint Paul reminding the Corinthians that the cup we bless and the bread we break make us one. The word at the heart of today’s celebration is communion. We speak of ‘going to Communion,’ of ‘receiving Holy Communion.’ But Communion does not simply mean receiving something. It means union with. The Eucharist is called Communion because it unites us, intimately and really, with Jesus Christ, and through him, with one another.

Saint Paul reminds us in the second reading that because there is one bread, we who are many are one body. Paul moves from Christ's Body to our being one body. For Paul, the two cannot be separated. To receive the Eucharist worthily is to be drawn into the unity of the Church. This is why it hurts the heart of Christ, and should hurt our hearts as well, that the Christian family today is so deeply divided. Jesus founded one Church. On the night before he died, he prayed, “that they may all be one." And yet across the centuries, Christians have splintered into countless communities, often over real wounds, sometimes over misunderstandings, and always, in some way, because of our fallen human nature. Even in Saint Paul's own day this was already happening. The Corinthian community, the community Paul addressed in today's reading, was riddled with factions. Some said, "I belong to Paul," others, "I belong to Apollos," others, "I belong to Cephas." And Paul cries out to them: "Is Christ divided?" Division is not new. It is the perennial temptation of a sinful humanity that struggles to remain united even around the Lord's own table. The Body of Christ at the altar and, us, the Body of Christ that is the Church are not two separate entities, they are joined, they are in communion. The Eucharist makes the Church. This is why the Church refers to the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Christian life. Everything in our faith flows from it, and everything leads back to it. It is not one devotion among many. It is the very heartbeat of who we are as Catholics.

Jesus was uncompromising in his literal teaching in the Gospel passage today. He did not say, "This is a symbol of my body." He said, " My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.." When his listeners murmured and questioned this, Jesus did not soften his words. He intensified them. "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you " For the Jewish people, blood was the essence of life. To drink the blood of Christ is to receive the life of Christ into our own. This is the most intimate union possible between God and the human person. By eating, what we consume becomes part of us. In the Eucharist we are transformed into what we receive. We become more like Christ. We are assimilated into him.

In the first reading Moses reminded the people how God fed them with manna in the desert so that they might learn "man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Jesus is the Word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The Word became flesh, and that same flesh he now gives us to eat. The manna in the desert was a foreshadowing, the Eucharist is the fulfilment. We are also pilgrims in a desert. Our world can be a parched and arid place, full of anxiety, division, loneliness, suffering. God, who fed our ancestors with manna, has not abandoned us. He continues to feed us. At every Mass, the priest, standing in the person of Christ, speaks the words of the eternal Word, and bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. Heaven touches earth. The bread of angels becomes our food.

The celebration today challenges us in several ways. It asks us to receive the Eucharist with renewed reverence and faith. Never let Holy Communion become routine. When we come to Communion, we should remember that we are receiving the living Christ. It asks us to become what we receive. If we are nourished by the Body of Christ, then we must live as members of his Body, with love for one another, with patience, forgiveness, mercy, especially toward those in our own families and parish with whom we might have disputes. And it asks us to pray and work for the unity of all Christians. The scandal of division will only be healed when each of us, in our own corner of the world, becomes a person of communion, building bridges, refusing gossip, healing wounds, witnessing to the one Lord, one faith, one baptism that Saint Paul spoke of.

When we approach for Holy Communion the same Jesus who fed the multitudes, who walked up Calvary, who rose from the grave, will give himself to us under the appearance of bread and wine. Receive him with wonder, faith, and love. Let him do in us what only he can do, make us one with him, and one with each other. This one Bread, one Body is the family meal, the heavenly banquet that Heals Our Divisions. May the Body and Blood of Christ bring us to everlasting life.

God Bless Brendan