A Penitent Blogger
You do this
On today’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Christ, one would think that we would hear an account of the Last Supper in the Gospel. What we hear instead is an account of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes in the Gospel (Luke 9:11b-17) while the Epistle (1 Corinthians 11:23-26) gives us an account of the Institution narrative (the oldest written account in the Scriptures).
One of the things we hear especially in St. Paul’s account is our Lord’s repeated command: Do this in remembrance of me.
Meanwhile, in the Gospel, our Lord’s first reaction to the people’s plight is to tell the disciples “Give them some food yourselves.”
Of course, it is the power of Christ that makes the action of the disciples effective, in the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and most gloriously in repeating the Lord’s words and actions with the bread and the cup (thus truly becoming the Body and Blood of the Lord), yet Lord still calls the disciples to act.
As the Lord gives us freely of his grace (most wonderfully and beautifully in the Blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood) the Lord also calls us to invest ourselves fully in what he gives us and in what we celebrate.
We should not just come to the Lord asking him to answer the needs around us without investing ourselves – our time and energy – in meeting these needs as best we can.
We should not just come to the Lord’s altar to experience his real presence and receive the bread of life or witness an uplifting celebration without investing ourselves fully by the ways respectively given to us – our mind, spirit, voice, and body – in the mystery we celebrate as the Church, whether the external forms of the particular celebration excite us aesthetically or not.
We should always do what we can to make things better, but we must let nothing ever keep us, in any act of charity or any celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist, from recognizing the grace and presence of the Lord and from giving ourselves totally to that moment to which God has called us.
Do this in remembrance of me.
One of the things we hear especially in St. Paul’s account is our Lord’s repeated command: Do this in remembrance of me.
Meanwhile, in the Gospel, our Lord’s first reaction to the people’s plight is to tell the disciples “Give them some food yourselves.”
Of course, it is the power of Christ that makes the action of the disciples effective, in the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and most gloriously in repeating the Lord’s words and actions with the bread and the cup (thus truly becoming the Body and Blood of the Lord), yet Lord still calls the disciples to act.
As the Lord gives us freely of his grace (most wonderfully and beautifully in the Blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood) the Lord also calls us to invest ourselves fully in what he gives us and in what we celebrate.
We should not just come to the Lord asking him to answer the needs around us without investing ourselves – our time and energy – in meeting these needs as best we can.
We should not just come to the Lord’s altar to experience his real presence and receive the bread of life or witness an uplifting celebration without investing ourselves fully by the ways respectively given to us – our mind, spirit, voice, and body – in the mystery we celebrate as the Church, whether the external forms of the particular celebration excite us aesthetically or not.
We should always do what we can to make things better, but we must let nothing ever keep us, in any act of charity or any celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist, from recognizing the grace and presence of the Lord and from giving ourselves totally to that moment to which God has called us.
Do this in remembrance of me.
posted by Penitens | 9:40 AM
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