SOLEMNITY OF THE CORPUS CHRISTI

 

Readings: Genesis 14:18-20

                 1Corinthians 11:23-26

                 Luke 9:11-17

 

 

“Give them some food yourselves…Then, he said the blessing

over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples…”

 

 

            Today, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Corpus Christi. On the one hand, this feast is in honor of one great Catholic dogma, the dogma which teaches the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But on the other hand, this is also a feast of an event of our salvation since we Catholics believe that the dogma on the Divine Presence is a matter of divine plan and institution. That is why although the actual institution of the sacrament happens on the night he was betrayed, the preparation of this big event traces back to the time of Christ’s public ministry, i.e., when he feeds the hungry crowd. This is the central message of our gospel today. Thus, on the feast Corpus Christi, we are invited to meditate on these important points: one, on the multiplication of the bread as pre-figuration of the Eucharist; two, on the context which serves as the foundation of its theological significance, i.e., on the message of Christ’s Eucharistic presence in the life of a hungry people.

 

            1.         “Then taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave to the disciples to set before the crowd.” The feeding of the hungry crowd is a prefiguration of the Eucharist. We say prefiguration because it foreshadows a coming event which bears with it a strong theological parallelism. This event is the institution of the Eucharist which would happen on Holy Thursday.

 

This prefiguration is embodied in the sacred actions of Christ: taking, blessing, breaking, giving. These actions are what we se when Christ feed the hungry crowd. He took the five loaves and two fish, blessed them, broke them and gave them. But these same actions are what we find too when Christ instituted the Eucharist on that Last Supper he had with apostles. He took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it. These sacred actions, and the repetition of them, are not accidental. They are external manifestations of Christ’s divine purpose and intention. “Taking” expresses the act of using something which is human, in order to perform a miracle which is something divine. Thus, in both occasions – in the feeding of the hungry crowd and in the last supper – Christ seems to enforce the idea of what we now call as sacramentally. “Blessing” expresses the act most befitting of him not only as the high priest, like Melchizedek, but more profoundly as a God from all nature’s bounty comes. “Breaking” is the painful act of tearing out what was originally one or few in order to become many and bountiful. In Today’s gospel, the breaking bears its literal meaning. The miracle of the multiplication of bread and fish takes off by their very breaking. In the Eucharist, the meaning is both symbolic and real. Symbolic, in the sense that the bread he breaks at the table symbolizes Christ’s tearing out of himself that many may live. But real, too, in the sense that such symbolism is fulfilled and realized on Calvary. “Giving” completes the act of breaking. The broken pieces must be given. After all, that’s what the miracle of the multiplication is for. But the act of giving even takes a much deeper and intimate sense especially in the Eucharist. It implies communion. Thus, b giving himself – and worthily receiving him, of course – one becomes united with and in Christ. In summary, therefore, the multiplication of the bread is clearly a prefiguration of the Eucharist.

 

2.         Now, this bears a highly striking theological significance. This prefiguration is the precise context which Christ designs to use in order to foreshadow the Eucharist. So, let us now try to get a closer look into this event. The gospel scenario gives us three groups or kinds of people: the crowd, the apostles and Jesus.

 

a.         What we see in the crowd, as portrayed in the gospel, is an earnest desire to listen to the Lord. And together with this desire is their faith that those who are ill among them will be cured. This portrayal tells us one pious reality. This crowd is first and foremost hungry for the word of God and for the Messianic fulfillment. This is the reason why they follow Jesus even unto a deserted place and until sunset. And Jesus did not fail them. As the gospel says: “Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God, and he healed those who needed to be cured.” But that is only one part of the story. As we are told further, this spiritual hunger resulted to material hunger. And Jesus seems to be immediately aware of it. So, he capitalizes the situation to test his apostles and teach them something they will never forget.

 

b.         But sadly, the apostles are unable to pick up what Christ intends. Perhaps, they may have just been honest enough to accept that they had nothing to offer. So, their best choice is to let the crowd go: “…dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms and find lodgings and provision; for we are in a deserted place here.” But such decision has quite frustrated the Lord.

 

c.         “Giving them some food yourselves.” Jesus could not afford to be passive before such a situation. He knows that the crowd came to that deserted place precisely because of him. To them, Jesus alone can fill their pious cravings. And they were not in vain. But certainly, spiritual food is not enough. Jesus knows perfectly well that people cannot just “pray for long with empty stomach.” So, he faces his apostles with a clear-cut challenge: Give them something to eat!

 

In so doing, Christ must have intended something noble and relevant as he prepares his apostles and the people to the future big event of the institution of the sacrament of his body and blood. The new and everlasting covenant which will soon establish must take its roots on the very experience of man, on that concrete reality of a hungry people. He himself knows that unless the breaking of the bread is relative of man’s experience of salvation, it may simply be meaningless and empty. Thus, the breaking of himself finds its meaning even before it reaches its fullest expression on the cross. His “dying that many may live” is foreshadowed in that very multiplication of the bread. His tearing out of himself is now a joy in pain for this is what it means to give in to love. Indeed, love multiplies when it is divided. And these broken and divided pieces have now become a genuine expression of love by becoming a real food for a hungry people. This is most probably why he tells his apostles as a matter of command to feed the hungry crowd. And not surprisingly, this command seems to prefigure once more that mandatory statement he made on the last supper: “Do this in memory of me.”