The Promise of Eternal Life

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

The Church today invites us to celebrate the feast of God's gift to us, our taste of eternal life.

There is a longing in each of us for eternal life with our God. But God has hidden this life from us because He desires that we search for it. The key to our search is to understand that eternal life is hidden in God Himself.

However, a taste of that eternal life is given to us in the form of the Eucharist. This banquet is prefigured for us in the Old Testament reading from Genesis, by the bread and wine that was offered by Melchizedek, King of Salem. Another instance appears in today's Gospel reading from Luke, where Jesus feeds the crowd of hungry people by blessing and breaking the five loaves and two fish and having his disciples distribute them to the people.

In today's second reading from First Corinthians, Paul relates what had been handed down to him concerning another King, Our Lord Jesus, who used those same elements of bread and wine to offer Himself as High Priest of a new covenant. This bread which Jesus blest and broke is His Body; the wine, His Blood. "Do this in remembrance of me," Jesus said.

Paul reminds us: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes."

This Bread and Wine, this Body and Blood brings us life; not like the manna that God gave the Israelites in the desert. The manna in the desert did not keep the Israelites from eventually dying. Indeed, we believe that Jesus' Body and Blood conquers death and brings us to the eternal life that we seek. We celebrate the Sacrifice of Jesus our High Priest today... and every day that the bread and wine are consecrated.