skip to main |
skip to sidebar
There is something to love about Corpus Christi. It is the second celebration in the liturgical calendar that highlights the Body and Blood of Christ. The first was Holy Thursday. At the Last Supper, even though the Passover Meal instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the emphasis was rightfully placed on the establishment of the priesthood of the New Covenant. After Easter, after Pentecost and right after the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, the attention is now shifted to the topic of Jesus’ Body and Blood.
The Solemnity celebrates, highlights and acknowledges Christ’s promise and presence. First, the promise was made right after He had multiplied bread and fish to feed to the hungry horde. The empty stomachs occasioned for Him a teaching moment on the necessity of eating His Body and drinking His Blood in order to secure eternal life. We know what happened from that incident. Everyone left Him: None of the 5000-strong crowd of men, not counting women and children, could fathom eating flesh and drinking blood—an act suggestive of cannibalism. Jesus did nothing to disabuse them of this idea.
Second, He told the Apostles before the Ascension that He would be with them until the end of time. Through both the establishment of the priesthood and the institution of the Holy Eucharist, Jesus has kept His promise to be present to us from then until the moment the Church on earth crosses into eternity.
Most interestingly, with regard to the charge of cannibalism, for 1500 years, Catholics or Christians had no problem understanding what they consume. The beauty of the accusation is that it actually lends historical weight to what the ancient Church believed in. They understood Jesus’ literal reference and without any reservation, they ate His Body and drank His Blood. They were unfazed by the accusation of cannibalism because they were not eating body parts as cannibals do. We consume Jesus in His entirety—His Body, His Blood, His Divinity and His Humanity. We eat Jesus, full stop. Not parts of Him. It matters not how big a piece of the sacred Host that we consume or how much from the consecrated chalice we have drunk, we would have eaten and drunk of Jesus fully.
To appreciate why we need to eat Jesus, we start with what happens in the process of consumption. The food we eat has a way of becoming us. Try a two-regimen of “Char Koay Teow” and witness your girth expanding. But there is another way of looking at how food changes us. A good example would be garlic or “petai”. If we consume nothing but just garlic or “petai”, soon enough our entire body will reek of garlic or “petai”. This analogy can help us grasp how slowly through the regular reception of the Holy Eucharist, we undergo a transformation which mirrors what the bread and wine undergo when they are consecrated at Mass.
Both the bread and wine retain their accidental appearances meaning that they will taste like bread and wine but through both the Spirit and the Word, both the substances of the bread and wine are changed completely into the substance of the Person of Christ. In other words, the process we term as “Transubstantiation” is achieve at an essential level thereby allowing the accidents to remain. Whatever renders bread as bread and wine as wine has been changed into the full divinity and humanity of Jesus.
The process of Transubstantiation is guaranteed by Christ Himself through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Through the priest who celebrates the Eucharist, Jesus fulfils His promise of giving us His Body and Blood. We eat and drink of Him in order that we may become like Him. In other words, just like the body beginning to exude the smell of garlic or “petai”, worthily consuming Christ’s body and drinking His blood will make us resemble Him more and more.
The Solemnity is truly a call for us to be the Body of Christ. This privileged vocation is a timely reminder especially when we are caught in the throes of a culture war that is centred on gender politics. That may not strike a chord for those in this country who are more familiar with racial politics. Here, our identity is not tied to qualification but “kulification” (skin colour) which simply calls to attention that identity is important. When we look at man’s attempts to secure a better world, nothing much has changed no matter how much we have advanced technologically. In the past, people cheated people and now they just have better ways of scamming electronically. It merely proves that we do not change the world by the dint of our might and effort. Instead, lasting transformation takes places through the conversion of heart. The more the human heart is shaped like Christ, the better will the shape of the world be.
The procession of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is an expression of this desire to be moulded into His image and likeness and it provides a solid foundation for our Catholic Christian identity. It does not solve the problem of posed by gender ideology or racial politics but it does give us a firm foundation to stand on. We are the Body of Christ and in carrying the Body of Christ, we signal our intention to be shaped more and more into His Body. As we continue to eat His Body and drink His Blood at the Eucharist, we beseech Him to mould and form us to be more like Him so that the change that humanity longs for can truly take shape.
We have been skirting around the 3rd Person of the Trinity in the last couple of weeks. Today He makes a grand appearance. The event that took place 50 days after the Resurrection is what we celebrate today. Originally, a Jewish feast, it commemorates the 50th day after the offering of the first sheaf at Passover. It was a harvest festival.
Actually both the Solemnities of Pentecost and Easter share the same reality concerning the Holy Spirit. Firstly, Pentecost marks the end of the Easter season where the Acts describe the promised Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles. The Gospel, however, harkens back to Easter Sunday where according to John the Evangelist, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the Cenacle. In effect, there are two accounts of the Holy Spirit’s coming. He was gifted by Christ at the Cenacle and He was sent by Him at Pentecost.
The description of fiery tongues of flames coming to rest on the heads of the Apostles, Our Lady and those who gathered in the upper room, paints a picture of a Church waiting to burst forth into the world. This imagery is traditionally associated with the birth of the Church.
The Church, while being a force for good, is not a gathering of do-gooders. The association of Confirmation with Pentecost shows that the presence of the Holy Spirit transforms the entire person which explains the Apostles running out of the upper room ready to evangelise the world.
The account in the Gospel however records another tack. Jesus breathed the Spirit upon them granting them peace and also forgiveness. In effect, He sent them out to reconcile the world through the forgiveness of sins. Like God breathing life into Adam, Christ breathes the Spirit upon the Apostles before missioning them to the world.
Both evangelisation and reconciliation are two sides of the one mission of the Holy Spirit. The structure of the seven Sacraments supports this enterprise. Firstly, we need to know who we are. We are initiated through Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist to become the Body of Christ. Secondly, if we use the analogy of Church militant, that is, the Church here on earth has a mission, then the remaining four Sacraments can be grouped into two under the Sacraments of Healing and Sacraments of Service. Both Confession and Anointing belong to the reconciling presence of the Church in the world whereas Matrimony and Holy Orders belong in the service of evangelisation. We bear witness to Christ in the world through reconciliation and sanctification.
In other words, Pentecost has cut out our job for us. Proclaim the Gospel and reconcile the world to Christ the Saviour. Easier said than done, actually. This is why we need the Holy Spirit. He is given to the Church to help her navigate through this world. Given the present trend to polarise reality, we need to know that both the Holy Spirit and the Church are not diametrically opposed to each other.
It is not as if the Holy Spirit suddenly appeared on Easter Sunday as Jesus breathed upon the Apostles nor at Pentecost when He descended upon them. Our Creed tells us that He had spoken through the Prophets. The difference now is that the age of the Church is also the age of the Holy Spirit. The Father was most seen and revealed in the act of creation. The Son was most seen and revealed in the act of redemption. Now the Spirit is most seen and revealed in the sanctification of those who follow Jesus and seek the will of the Father.
That is exactly the Church’s mission which the Holy Spirit has a central role in animating. The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists how present the Holy Spirit is. He is present in the Scriptures that He inspired, in the Tradition, of which the Church is always a timeless witness, in the Church’s Magisterium, which He assists, in the Sacramental Liturgy, where He brings us into communion with Jesus, in prayer where He intercedes for us, in the different charisms and ministries through which He builds up the Church, in the signs of apostolic and missionary life, in the witness of saints through whom He manifests His holiness and continues the work of salvation. (CCC #688).
In short, He animates the Body of Christ by teaching through the Bishops, by sanctifying the sons and daughters of the Church through prayer and the Sacraments, and He evangelises through the apostolic ministries and works of the Church. The Holy Spirit has been very much active in the history of our world and continues to be active in the life of the Church. Yet we all know it is not easy to reconcile everything that the Church does with the Holy Spirit?
It is not easy simple because some seem to have confused the Holy Spirit with spontaneity which for most of the time is taken to mean that one should not be tied down by “rules” or Tradition. In other words, the Spirit is constantly trying to break free from the restraints of the past. Conflating the Holy Spirit with the spirit of the times or rather the spirit of the changing times has only resulted in a rise of an anti-institutional attitude against the Church.
Perhaps an answer is found in how the liturgical calendar is organised. Next week we return to Ordinary Time. Sure, for two Sundays we will have the Solemnities of the Blessed Trinity and after that Corpus et Sanguis Christi. Still they belong in Ordinary Time and this is instructive because it shows us that Pentecost does not usher in a “new” age as if “newer” were the better age. Neither does it inaugurate a “freer” Church. We are not “living after” Pentecost. Instead, we are “living out” Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is specifically gifted so as to transform and strengthen us into better witnesses of the Saving Mysteries of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Thus, the Holy Spirit is not a spirit that validates whatever the spirit of the times demands. Instead He animates the Church so that she can effectively evangelise humanity and reconcile creation in its entirety under the reign of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.
As mentioned last Thursday, when so many parts of the Catholic-sphere celebrate today as Ascension, the 7th Sunday feels useless. Nevertheless, hanging around is not nothing. The Eleven with Mary and some others gathered, as instructed by the Lord Himself, in their usual hangout to wait for the Holy Spirit. The Gospel, however, brings us back to the time when Jesus was still preparing for His Passion and Resurrection. His prayer to the Father comes at the tail-end of His Farewell Discourse and He will be arrested after this.
What Jesus offered, amongst other things, is Him glorifying the Father and vice versa. The act of glorification is achieved through setting His disciples apart from this world. They are indeed in the world but they do not belong with it. This setting apart feels almost like a double existence but it is precisely in straddling the City of Man and the City of God that makes Christianity a force to be reckoned with.
“In the world and not of the world” expresses the true character of the Incarnation. He came into this world but He did not belong to this world. From a certain perspective, we can say that He was way ahead of His generation and time. Even though the social norms were restrictive but Jesus was never afraid to break many of them. He ate with sinners, touched lepers, forgave an adulteress, healed the servant of a Roman official, associated with tax collectors and spent time with in a Samaritan village. All His actions sprang from a source that has a deeply scriptural basis. “Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves”. Jesus valued people because each person has been created in His image and likeness. His behavioural pattern characterises a man not of this world.
Perhaps the theme of this year’s World Communications Sunday can help us reflect further on the balance between being in this world while not belonging to it. “Veritatem facientes in caritate”, that is, “speaking the Truth in love”. How can we do that?
Perhaps, we should start with disabusing ourselves of or with debunking a common notion of who Christ truly was. Firstly, He prayed for the unity of those who followed Him and as such, He consecrated His followers so that they could be united by a love which holds both the Father and the Son together. This idea of unity is certainly appealing when all around us we experience fragmentations and divisions. People are at each other’s throats. Worst of all is that truth is now decided by who possesses a greater media presence—broadcast, digital or print. In this age of media power, a lie told one time too many tends to become “truth”, and this can happen because there are players that control the narratives. The experience of Elon Musk and Twitter shows how Big Tech functions tweaking algorithms to corral our thinking. Whoopi Goldberg who has a media presence uses God to justify gender altering surgeries for children.
One of the misguided truths about Jesus that flows from the ability to platform such a view like Whoopi’s is that Jesus was nice without qualifications. He covers our multitude of sins simply because He is merciful. Yet the most glaring exception is found when dealing with the woman caught in adultery. Jesus was incredibly gentle with her but He was also firm: “Go and sin no more”. This is the real Jesus that we need to proclaim. Having a God who is loving and kind is of course something we all want. We want a Jesus who understands and accepts us unconditionally. In reality, the truth who Jesus Christ is can both unsettle and disturb us. Yet, we should never shy from communicating the truth that has its foundation in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The unenviable challenge is to proclaim Jesus. While His truth must always be proclaimed with mercy with regard to the human condition, the question is how we should balance a kind Jesus with accepting differences while not tolerating perversion. Every encounter with someone from the fringe, the Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus or Matthew, both tax collectors, concluded with them entering into the fold of Jesus. Truth is always humbly attractive rather than thoughtlessly heavy-handed. The fact remains that while Jesus accepted all, He was uncompromising in the salvation of souls. This fact is important because “nice” seems to suggest that Jesus tolerates perversion. No matter how perverse one’s sins are, yet each experience of Jesus was always an encounter of faith and conversion. Hence, the virtue of compassion that we crave requires truth. Without truth, it is not compassion. In fact, without truth, compassion is wicked.
We can see that the entire ministry of Jesus was an acknowledgement that He lived in this world. What He did not do was to live “LIKE” this world. It makes sense that He prayed for unity. He prayed for His disciples to be united because unity is fostered by embracing the truth which is taught in the gospels and translated into action. Thus, unity requires that we speak and act in truth because the choice to live in truth has an effect on society. Civilisation can only change when we change. It begins one choice at a time.
Truth is therefore not a matter of right or being right. Rather it is an ability live truthfully that makes our speech compassionate, yet convincing and compelling. Our challenge these days is that the faculty of communication has been co-opted by an ideology that is set on dismantling the structures of racism, patriarchy and heteronormativity. It seems that these oppressions are obstacles to a freer and fuller expressions of human existence. In other words, woke ideology has compelled both speech and communication to virtue signal to the world that one’s opinion and belief stand on the “correct, right and safe side of the truth”. Think of the recent advertising fiasco where a man who identifies as a woman was put forward to be the spokesperson for Bud Light Beer because the VP for Marketing felt that the brand should keep up with the changing fads and feelings. And now Adidas seems to have jumped into the same bandwagon because it uses biological males to model women’s swimsuits.
In this age of woke virtue signalling, one must be outraged by people who are racists or behave in a patriarchal way or try to restrict created genders to basically male and female. It is as if our communication must broadcast that we are freed from racism, patriarchy or the bondage binary genders. This is the new political correctness that communication must obey if one were not to incur the condemnation of bigotry, hate speech and prejudice.
The truth to be communicated is more than just freedom from racism, patriarchy or binary restriction. It is true that any form of communication that serves the truth requires open dialogue, fraternal charity and freedom from coercion. Most of all, we should never forget that we have been set apart with a duty to present to humanity, our brothers and sisters, with the full array of what it means to live truthfully in this world but always with eyes set on another world to come.
