This is what I received from the Lord,
and in turn passed on to you: that on the same night that he was betrayed,
the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he
said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me.’ In
the same way he took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new
covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.’ Until
the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you are proclaiming his death.
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Food for
thought!
Today, we are
celebrating Corpus Christi feast; it is the feast of the Eucharist. We
celebrate the Eucharist everyday, so why do we need a feast for it? Well,
before anything else, the word «Eucharist» means «thanksgiving». And as you see
the reading above, Jesus took some bread, AND THANKED GOD for it and broke it.
Then he said, do this as a memorial of me. In other words, Jesus told us to do
what he did. And this is why we have a feast for thanksgiving; lest we forget.
A feast like
this affords us the opportunity to give God collective thanks to God for
Christ’s salvation.
How do you thank
God? Do you just come kneel down and say, I thank you Lord? This is not enough.
There's a proper way of thanking God. As the Psalm 116:12-13 says, «How can I
repay to the Lord for all his goodness to me? The cup of salvation I will
raise; I will call on the name of the Lord... A thanksgiving sacrifice I make;
I will call on the name of the Lord.» The answer is by the Eucharist, because
this is how Jesus did and taught us to do, «he took bread and gave thanks; he
took the cup and gave thanks». And after he told and tells us: «Do this in
memory of me.» So the Eucharist is about THANKSGIVING.
But do we really
need to thank God? For what? It is because Jesus did it all, I mean our
salvation; he saved us all. This is why he died saying, «It is finished.» All
we have to do now is thank God; there's no more salvation because it is already
done by Jesus. It means that we are already spared, we are already saved BY THE
BLOOD OF JESUS.
As long ago in
the Old Testament the Jews of old were saved by the blood of the lambs
slaughtered in Egypt, you and I are saved by the blood, not of animals, of
Jesus blood. This is what the letter to the Hebrews reminds us:
«But when Christ
came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went
through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human
hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by
means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once
for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. The blood of goats
and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially
unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then,
will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so
that we may serve the living God!» (Heb 9:11-15)
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