Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

Introduction

God loves the entire Cre­ated Order that He takes care of the mater­i­al and spir­itu­al life of His handi­work, espe­cially of human beings. Jesus recalled the atten­tion of the dis­ciples, when they wanted to bypass this divine dic­tate (Luke 9:11–17; cf. also Mark 6:30–44). The dog­mat­ic theo­logy schol­ars can­not for­get the long his­tor­ic­al heated debates con­cern­ing the nature of the con­sec­rated bread and wine – Con­sub­stan­ti­ation (also called Impana­tion) and Tran­sub­stan­ti­ation. In as much as we appre­ci­ate the effort to provide a dog­mat­ic found­a­tion to and for the Sac­ra­ment of the Euchar­ist, we must ensure that such debates, espe­cially, the dis­agree­ments, do not empty the Euchar­ist of its essen­tial and scrip­tur­al (salvif­ic and com­mun­al) effects. The Euchar­ist is “the source and sum­mit of the Chris­ti­an life.”[i] It is scrip­tur­ally and theo­lo­gic­ally founded.

The bread of eternal life

“I am the liv­ing bread that came down from heav­en; who­ever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6:51). In ref­er­ence to his death on the cross, Jesus uses the meta­phor of bread, describ­ing him­self as a liv­ing bread from heav­en. For one to live, then, the per­son must eat this bread. Fur­ther­more, Jesus describes his flesh as that bread giv­en for the sake of the world. This say­ing soun­ded strange to the Jews. In fact, they wondered “how can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52). Such inter­rog­a­tion offered Jesus the chance for fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion “Amen, amen, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you…” (John 6:53–56). Because Jesus came from above, where­as the Jews were from below (cf. John 8:23), they could not under­stand heav­enly and theo­lo­gic­al sayings.…..

Conclusion

The feast of Cor­pus et San­guis Christi presents us with import­ant theo­lo­gic­al and eccle­si­olo­gic­al concept – koinōnia. Since God is light (Greek: phōs, cf. 1John 1:5), it is not pos­sible for us to have fel­low­ship with him if we are walk­ing and oper­at­ing in dark­ness (Greek: sco­tia, cf. 1John 1:6). It is a logic­al impossib­il­ity. For John, issues of spir­itu­al import­ance are all black and white. Address­ing the Curia, the admin­is­trat­ive appar­at­us of Vat­ic­an, dur­ing the annu­al Christ­mas greet­ings in 2014, Pope Fran­cis lis­ted what he termed the fif­teen ail­ments of the Vat­ic­an Curia. In the fifth sick­ness tagged Sick­ness of poor coordin­a­tion, the Pope notes that this sick­ness devel­ops when the com­mu­nion ‎between mem­bers is lost, and the body loses its har­mo­ni­ous func­tion­al­ity ‎and its tem­per­ance, becom­ing an orches­tra of caco­phony (Itali­an: chi­asso) because the ‎mem­bers do not col­lab­or­ate and do not work with a spir­it of com­mu­nion or ‎as a team.[i]‎ We can ima­gine the coun­ten­ance of the Curia mem­bers at the pro­nounce­ment of those words by the pope. But the truth is that such sick­ness is a canker­worm that has eaten and con­tin­ues to eat deep into the fab­rics of the eccle­si­ast­ic­al com­munit­ies. How do we dia­gnose it? What are our own ailments?.….…. 

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I and II)!! The reflec­tion for the SOLEMNITY OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST (B) is found in Vol. I, pages 319–332, and vol. II pages 239–243. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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[i] Pope Fran­cis, La Curia Romana e il Corpo di Cristo. Christ­mas Speech to the Roman Curia in Sala Clem­entina, Decem­ber 22, 2014.

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[i] Vat­ic­an Coun­cil II, Lumen Gen­ti­um, n. 11.

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