May 29, 2016

Feast of Corpus Christi - A Reflection by Fr. Leo

 

On the night before Jesus was to be handed over he gave the disciples a way of remembering him after he was physically gone.  Drawing on the rich religious tradition of the Jews steeped in sacrifice to God and later memorialized in the Passover meal with bread and wine, Jesus took what was on the table before him and said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

 

What Jesus did, builds on, or flows from the covenant relationship between a monotheistic God and God’s people.  Jesus’ death and resurrection then, effects a change in how we as human beings relate to God. Because of Jesus, God becomes someone to whom we relate to in a direct and personal way.  He taught us to call God Abba, a filial relationship of child to “Daddy.”  In that address, we are invited to relate to God as Jesus did, to trust in God’s love for us that can not be diminished.

 

The relationship that Jesus effected for us through his life, death and resurrection is the foundation of the wonderful story we hear in Luke’s gospel today.  Hear the story as a narrative of relationships.  Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed, and shared by breaking up the two fish and five loaves to give to the people.  Then, as Jesus instructed, they gave something of themselves.  After the Spirit moved through the hearts of all present there was more than enough left over for all the world’s needs. Twelve wicker baskets representing the twelve tribes of Israel. 

 

Only through authentic, Spirit filled, relationships can we be transformed, and the world through us.  As our bread is transformed here into the full presences of Christ, we are invited to be in full communion with Christ’s spirit, so that we may be transformed, and through us all the world.