Is the Body of Christ Real or Only Symbolic?

Good morning.

Once again, today we celebrate Corpus Christi Sunday, which is Sunday of the body and blood of Christ.

And as I mentioned at the beginning of the Mass to celebrate this day at all of our Masses, at the very end, we're going to have a Eucharistic procession in our church right here in our pews.

And just like, if you've never experienced a Eucharistic procession before, it's when we place Jesus into what's called the monstrance, which you're going to see later on in the Mass.

And just like Jesus walked the earth 2,000 years ago, it'll be an experience of him walking in our midst as well.

And during that moment, I'm going to invite us to do what the people in the Gospels did during his time.

Reach out to him, speak to him, cry out to him, and encounter him, and above all, to allow him to encounter us.

And so that's what we're going to do to celebrate Corpus Christi Sunday today.

Okay, the theme of my homily today is Is the body of Christ real or only symbolic?

Is the Eucharist, the body of Christ, real or only symbolic?

What do you think?

Real?

Sure?

Yes.

We're going to find out today.

We're going to look and see what the church has to say about this topic.

I'm going to share a little bit from my own personal experience.

And then we're going to look at the gospel, John chapter 6, what the Bible says on this topic.

John 6 · chapter mention

Is the body of Christ real or only just a symbol?

So let's begin with the very first.

So what does the church have to say about this topic?

Whether the body of Christ is real or only symbolic?

The church says this that when the priest says the words of consecration over the bread and the wine, and the priest says, This is my body, and this is the chalice of my blood, that the church teaches that the bread and wine become the very body and blood of Jesus.

There's a big fancy word that we use to describe this in the church.

Does anyone know what that word is?

It's called transubstantiation.

It's a big word.

What it means is this that the substance of the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Christ, even though the appearance of bread and wine still remain the same.

In other words, bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Jesus.

That's what the church says about this topic.

Okay.

I'm going to share with you a little bit of my experience with this.

When I was in college, uh, like many young people, I began to fall away from my faith.

And I won't tell the whole story here, but eventually I found my way back.

And I discovered this teaching of the church on the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ.

I said, Oh, I've been to church my whole life.

From an infant to a kid, and I don't think I ever heard this teaching before.

Or at least maybe I didn't understand it.

And then when I finally discovered this teaching, I said, is that really true?

And I wrestled with it, and I studied and I read and I and I listened and I prayed about it.

And I remember I started coming back to Mass.

You know, I started to drift away, I started coming back to Mass again.

I started to go to daily mass even, and I would sit all the way in the very back of the church.

Good Catholic, right?

All the way in the No, no.

I would sit all the way in the back and I would like and I would look.

You know, at the priest celebrating the Mass.

And then he would say the words of consecration.

This is my body, this is the chalice of my blood.

And I I thought about what the church taught about this topic, and I was like, and I would look and like, really?

Is it really you?

Is it really you, Jesus, there on the altar?

And I struggled for a long time with this teaching.

For a long time.

Until one day, God gave me a special grace.

He gave me the grace to believe.

And the moment that I believed, I became overwhelmed with a sense of just how much God loved me.

I became filled with a deep sense of peace.

I mean, I remember there are days when I felt so much love and the pe and the peace of God in my heart.

I said, Lord, if you take me today, and you take me to be with you in heaven today, I'm ready.

I'm ready to go.

And well, as you can see, he didn't listen to my prayer.

He did not take me with him.

He said I think he was a way of saying, I still got a mission for you, Martin.

I just I still got a mission for you.

But that was my experience.

God gave me a special grace to believe what the church had to say on this topic.

And when I believed, I became overwhelmed with a sense of the love and the peace of Christ in my heart.

Now, I want to share with you now.

I mentioned we're looking at the Bible, okay?

I'm gonna share a few verses that I encountered as I was discovering this teaching of the church on the Eucharist.

And the words that we heard today, I'm gonna share with you three scripture passages that I encountered.

Let's look at the very first one, what Jesus has to say on this topic.

Would you read together this verse with me?

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

Whoever eats this bread will live forever.

And the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

Jesus is the living bread that he'll give is his flesh, but could he just be speaking symbolically?

Well, let's look at the next verse to see how the Jewish crowds respond to what Jesus says here.

This is the next verse, let's read together.

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Did they understand him symbolically or literally?

Literally.

How can they quarrel among themselves?

How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Now Jesus has an opportunity here.

He can either clarify what he's saying and say, hold on a second.

I'm just speaking metaphorically, I'm just speaking symbolically, or he can push forward.

The next verse we're gonna see what Jesus says.

Let's read together.

Amen, amen, I say to you.

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

Did he step back?

He did not draw back, did he?

He pushed forward.

Now, um, I'm gonna stop here.

The verses can will continue on, but I'm gonna stop with this verse.

I'm gonna share some context so that we can understand this verse a little bit better.

The context, the history behind this.

Jewish worship was centered around the sacrifice of animals in the temple.

Okay, so let's say a priest would take like a lamb or a goat, and the the priest would symbolically place the sins of the people onto the goat.

And then what would happen with the goat?

Sacrifice.

It would be sacrificed, right?

A goat would be sacrificed.

And it was a way of saying what's happening to this lamb or this sheep or this goat should really be happening to me because of my sins.

But this goat takes my place.

This is where we get the term scapegoat from.

The goat takes my place.

Now, after the sacrifice would take place, uh, the people or the the flesh, what would happen after the sacrifice would take place?

Do you know?

Barbecue, right?

Okay.

The flesh of the goat or the sheep or the lamb could be eaten, and it was a way of saying, now that the light, that the light that I had lost through sin is now coming back to me as I consume the flesh of this animal.

Now, notice the connection here.

What does Jesus say?

Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you do not have life for the they would have been thinking about the animal sacrifice.

And can you see the connection?

Can you see the connection?

Jesus now is the new the goat, the lamb, the sheep of sacrifice.

He takes our sins onto himself.

He is sacrificed on the cross for our sins.

And when we eat his flesh and drink his blood, the life that we had lost through sin is restored back to us.

Do you see the connection?

This is what it means when Jesus says that.

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

They would have been thinking about the animal sacrifice.

But what happened only in symbol with the animal happens in reality with Jesus.

Because he is truly the Son of God.

Okay.

Now I I could go so much deeper into this, but for the sake of time, we have to stop here.

I'm going to uh close uh this homily by saying this.

We've heard now what the church has to say on this topic, yes?

We've heard what the church says.

I've shared a little bit of my own experience wrestling with this teaching.

We've now heard a few verses of what Jesus says on this topic as well.

I invite us today, as we come forward to receive the body of Christ in Holy Communion, and as we do the Eucharistic procession at the end of our Mass today, to recognize who it is that we are receiving.

Who it is that's walking among us, and not just what it is.

Not just a piece of bread, not just a cup of wine, but truly the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.