CORPUS CHRISTI (B-6)
(Noon) Are we God’s transfusion for the world?
Do you know that we have anywhere from 14 to 18 pints of blood in our body? It is what carries oxygen and nutrients to every part of our body, while carrying carbon dioxide and all waste products to our lungs, kidneys and intestines for expulsion. How fascinating! It carries the bad and good for a purpose: keeping us and every part of our bodies alive! If blood stops flowing either our part or us would die.
So blood is life. It keeps us alive. It keeps us well. The oxygen we breathe enters our blood stream and nourishes our body and each part.
When we are cut and lose blood, we might need a transfusion to help us keep us alive long enough to heal.
The Jews understood blood in this way and so saw blood as sacred.
It was a source of life, and it was sacred. There were dietary restrictions not to drink animal’s blood to avoid contamination. But it was used in rituals like in today’s 1 st Reading, to bless the altar, and us. Blood was sprinkled onto the door posts in Egypt the night before the Exodus. It is that event, the Passover, on which the Mass is based upon.
Jesus, born in a manger, a feeding trough, shows us he is to be food. He is our life’s blood. That’s what we celebrate today. We live by
God’s will. We are Christian by Jesus’ will. We must become the oxygen that is transformed into blood and food. We are to become the apostolic transfusion that will give the world new life.
We’ve all heard, “We are what we eat!” So my question to us today is, “Are we?” Do we believe that what we’ll eat and drink today we are to become? If not, then the Eucharist and this feast are a sham, or we’re either not a Christian or too young to understand. So let me try to help!
(Parts adapted and paraphrased from a homily by Brendan McGwire, Diocese of San Jose)
The Eucharist is the Sacrament, the door to the Holy, which invites us to eat and drink, all the while becoming what we eat and drink. To
1

understand what I’m saying, we need some background. In the Gospel of
John, ch. 4, v. 31-35. Jesus tells his disciples, “I have food to eat which you do not know…My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” His food was linked to doing. But doing what?
His mission is in Luke 4: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for the
Lord has anointed me to preach Good News to the poor, return sight to the blind, free the captives, and declare the favorable year of the Lord.”
That’s his Mission Statement. Ours is like it: “We inspire by our example our love for God and neighbor.”
So, when we come up to commune with God and hold our hands out, we are saying amen to living out Christ’s will for us and to complete his work: to inspire the world to love God and each other.
Jesus sends his apostles and us “to go forth and bear fruit that will last…By loving one another as we have been loved…by giving our lives for our friends in the Lord.”
So once again I ask, “Are we going to become what we eat and drink?” Are we ready to do what Jesus is sending us out to do and to complete his work? Then come and eat, come and drink, and take what we’ve eaten and drunk to a love-starved world.
2