CORPUS CHRISTI

The Holy Eucharist is at the root of all holiness. How many saints have advanced to holiness through the Eucharist? Holiness has always found its center in the Eucharist. Today we are celebrating the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. God recognizes the fact that we are material beings in embodied souls. God uses sensible signs to lead us to spiritual realities. This time, God did not just use a sign or symbol. Jesus offered bread and wine and turned it into His own body and blood. We remember the Holy Eucharist models, martyrs and saints who discovered the secret in the Body and Blood of Christ. We can not live without the Holy Eucharist. It is only through it that we can cope with the toil and exhaustion of this life journey. God is the source of every good thing and He pours it out on us from the moment of creation up to the present time. When we receive the bread and wine turned into the body and blood of Christ during the mass, He becomes a part of us. It is a call to love Him and be attached to Him. This invitation of God is not exclusive and is extended to all of us. Amen. Hallelujah!


Exodus 24:3-8
3 When Moses came to the people and related all the words and ordinances of the LORD, they all answered with one voice, “We will do everything that the LORD has told us.”...Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people, who answered, “All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do.”

It will always be good to undergo trials and hardships in life and remain steadfast in the Lord for everything will pay off in the end. Not a single thing that we've been through for the glory of God will ever be in vain. It is only right that we give all glory, honor and praise to God. We need not wait and see any longer for it is in our very own lives that God wants us to start paying attention to in order to make a return for all the good he has done. Amen. Hallelujah!


P S A L M

Psalm 116:12-13. 15-16. 17-18 (13)
R: I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
How shall I make a return to the LORD for all the good he has done for me?...To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving, and I will call upon the name of the LORD. 18 My vows to the LORD I will pay in the presence of all his people.

Nothing that we do can ever be enough compared to what Jesus has done for all of us. If and only if we always have an attitude of gratitude and praise to God then somehow we are striving and living up to God's call and be truly worthy of His promises. God Himself has given His own body and blood as a gift to mankind. The Eucharist is a sacrament of God's everlasting love that is like a fire ever burning that consumes all of the selfishness and coldness in our flesh. He gave Himself to man as food, satisfying food that erases all kinds of hunger with no taste of bitterness. We are all members of Christ's Body the Church. We are a team working together under the Lordship of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Hallelujah!


Hebrews 9:11-15
...how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God. 15 For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant: since a death has taken place for deliverance from transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.

Has it ever happened to you when people, things and circumstances come into your life as if they were all lined up to happen even before it came to be? In today's gospel, the disciples asked Jesus what to do and were given specific instructions. They obeyed and followed what they were told despite the oddity of the situation. The need to go into the city where a man carrying a jar of water met them whom they followed wherever he entered and were able to carry out what they were told to do. This same thing happens in our lives too but we simply do not believe, obey and follow. We have a tendency to rationalize things in our life and make decisions that we think are wiser for us to take rather than look very closely and pay attention to the things that God is telling us to do which are all very clear and established even before each one of us came to be since the time of Moses and until the present time through the teachings of the Church that remained intact and true since the "gates of hell" did not, does not and will never prevail. We need to have a profound love of the Eucharist and be united and transformed by Holy Communion. In the feeding of the 5,000, those who were hungry were satisfied. The faith required of the believer is more than just being fed physically and satisfied but has to go beyond it. How long will we be hard of heart? God is humbling Himself daily in the altar in the hands of the priest. As we see bread and wine with bodily eyes we should see it as the Holy Body and Blood, living and true while we remember what He said in the scripture, "Behold, I am with you even to the end of the world." The feast of the Corpus Christi should remind us how blessed we are that we can eat the body of Christ and drink of His blood everyday if we will it during the daily masses being offered throughout the world. There is nothing more rewarding than being able to attend Holy Mass and receive the Holy Communion everyday. For those who are unable to do this, we ask God for the grace to be able to do so and for those who are already enjoying this special privilege may they cherish every moment and continue to persevere. Nothing can beat this bread, tastes so delicious and filling to the soul! Thanks be to God for the Most Blessed Sacrament. Amen. Hallelujah!

Mark 14:12-16. 22-26
12 On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 13 He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. 14 Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, “The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ ” 15 Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” 16 The disciples then went off, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover.