“My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

Last week on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, I began the homily by pointing out that, contrary to a lot of popular suggestion, all religions are not basically the same.  Some religions worship many gods; some have none at all.  Our Catholic belief that God is one in three persons is unique.

Christianity is also distinguished by our belief that God became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ.  No other world religion believes in a being that is fully human and fully divine at the same time: one person with two natures.

Today’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ helps us to appreciate the extraordinariness of our faith even more.  Not only do we believe in the Incarnation, God taking on flesh in the person of Jesus, we believe that, the night before he died, Jesus instituted the Eucharist and taught his Apostles how he was to remembered in the Mass.

And we believe that at Mass, the bread and 

wine that are offered at the altar, when consecrated by the action of the priest, become, literally and actually his Body and Blood.  We could think of this as another Incarnation, God taking on flesh again.

Today’s Solemnity – “Corpus Christi” as it used to be called by its Latin title – encourages us to give thanks for the gift of Jesus himself and especially his sacrifice on the cross.  And it also encourages us to give thanks for all the other ways in which God has fed us and provided for us across the years. “Eucharist” itself means “thanksgiving”, and today we give thanks.  

God bless, Fr Kevin.