The Sunday Gospel [Solemnity of Corpus Christi - June 10, 2012]
Mark 14:12-15, 22-26
12On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 13He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. 14Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ 15Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.”
22While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” 23Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed* for many. 25Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” 26Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Reflection
‘While they were eating, [Jesus] took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.”’ ~ v. 22
There are four accounts of the institution of the Eucharist which can be grouped into two strands of traditions: the Markan and Matthean, and the Lucan and Pauline. Mark (14:22) and Matthew (26:26) give the words spoken over the bread as “This is my body” and over the chalice as “This is my blood of the covenant.” Luke (22:19) and Paul (1 Corinthians 11:24) both speak of the “covenant in my blood” and of the instruction to repeat the action: “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Before the words of institution, Jesus takes the bread and says the blessing. Mark uses the Greek word eulogia – to say the blessing. This is related to the Hebrew berakah, the great prayer of thanksgiving and blessing. The early Christians saw the words of consecration as part of their praying and thanksgiving with and in Jesus, through which the gift of God is given back to God in the body and blood of Jesus. Hence, they spoke of the whole rite as Eucharist, as eucharistia (the word used for “thanksgiving” in Luke and Paul.
Another action of Jesus is “breaking the bread.” This was the function of the head of the family in Israel; he is the provider. In some sense he represents God who gives human beings the earth’s bounty to support their lives. In a way, Jesus acts as the head of the family who welcomes into table fellowship “his own.” But in the Last Supper, Jesus does not just distribute God’s – and the earth’s – gifts. He gives of himself. This gesture of Jesus would then come to symbolize the whole of the Eucharist which in the New Testament was known as “the breaking of bread.”
“Breaking the bread” in a deeper sense signifies the breaking of Jesus’ body in suffering and death. Jesus says of the bread he takes, “This is my body.” The body here does not just refer to his body as opposed to his spirit; it refers to his own person, to himself, as the Messiah.
Jesus offers himself in the form of the bread which is broken, but the real meaning of that will find concretization on the following day, when he dies on the cross. There, Jesus will be literally broken. “This is my body” is an offering of his whole person in love. Hence, at the Last Supper, Jesus is transforming his violent death into a free act of self-giving for others. He fulfills his declaration as the Good Shepherd; “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own” (John 10:18). But Jesus can give his life because he knows that he is taking it up again.
Pope Benedict comments on his book Jesus of Nazareth (Part II): “the act of giving his life includes the Resurrection. Therefore, by way of anticipation, he can already distribute himself, because he is already offering his life – himself – in the process of receiving it himself. So it is that he can already institute the sacrament in which he becomes the grain of wheat that dies, the sacrament in which he distributed himself to men through the ages in the real multiplication of loves.”
Reflection Credits: Fr. Gil A. Alinsangan, SSP; On the Way of the Cross
Source: The Reflection is from Bro. Abel Navarro (you can visit his blog at http://myblogabelnavarroabel.blogspot.com/).
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