Corpus Christi

In the words of Aloysius Pieris, the Eucharist is essentially an ecclesial event, a faith celebration of the Word that creates a Kingdom-community. Its ultimate meaning is the command of Jesus, “Do this (i.e. break your body and pour out your life for one another) in memory of me.” This is to say, “Love one another the way I have loved you.” The purpose? So that “You may be one as the Father and I are one”: one flock, one table, one cup, one bread, one world, one body, one community, in short, God’s Reign. (God’s reign for God’s poor)

The only way we can keep alive this dangerous memory of Jesus is to enact it in our lives. Eucharist celebrates this enactment as well as pledges us to it. If this focus is missing, if we see it as being only about Jesus, then our worship is unreal.

What do we understand by the term ‘Body of Christ’? Lest we hold too narrow an understanding, listen to a sermon that Augustine preached at Easter in the first decade of the fifth century:
If then you wish to understand the body of Christ, listen to the Apostle as he says to the faithful "You are the body of Christ and His members" (1 Corinthians 12:27). If, therefore, you are the body of Christ and His members, your mystery has been placed on the Lord's table, you receive your mystery. You reply "Amen" to that which you are, and by replying you consent. . . . But why in bread? . . . "We, though many, are one bread, one body" (1 Corinthians 10:17). Understand and rejoice. Unity! Verity! Piety! Charity! "One bread." What is this one bread? "Many . . . one body." Remember that bread is not made from one grain, but from many. When you were exorcised you were, after a fashion, milled. When you were baptized you were moistened. When you received the fire of the Holy Spirit you were baked. Be what you see, and receive what you are. . . . Many grapes hang in the cluster, but the liquid of the grapes is mixed in unity. So also did Christ the Lord portray us. He willed that we belong to Him. He consecrated the mystery of our peace and unity upon His table.

In the early Church the Body of Christ was always the faithful gathered in Jesus’ name (“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”) And that reality continued in the mystical tradition of our Church, so that Teresa of Avila could say, “Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet upon the earth but yours.” If we are the body of Christ now, then it is our bodies that are given up for the Reign of God, our blood poured out in love. Our coming to Eucharistic celebration is to pledge that we will do so. The ‘Amen’ we utter when the minister says, “Body of Christ” is also an affirmation of our readiness and our commitment.
(from the CLT 'Reflection on the Eucharist')