Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Year B

“This Is My Blood Of The Covenant”

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

 Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Year B

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, June 2, 2024

We come to the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, commonly known as the Corpus Christi. On this important day I have a question: What is the Mass? Is it just a chance for us to get together and fellowship? Is it just an opportunity to get together, sing together and fondly remember Jesus? Not at all! If that’s all the Mass is, it won’t bother me when you don’t come to Mass because it means it is not all that important. Coming together to fellowship and remember a pivotal figure is what Abraham Lincoln Society does. 

As a priest, I come to Mass vested not just as a minister or a preacher or a spiritual care provider. I am wearing the robes of a temple priest. I am called not a minister or doctor. I am called priest. The bishop is a high priest, that’s why a bishop wears miter (the tall headdress). I don’t come to Mass just to fondly remember what a great and inspiring figure Jesus was. Acting in “persona Christi,” in the very person of Christ, I realize, I make possible in an unbloody sacramental manner, the death of Jesus. At Mass, I offer to the Eternal Father, the Blood of the Son, Jesus Christ. When does this happen at Mass? When you see the priest or the bishop elevates, raises up the chalice at Mass, that is the moment when the Blood of Christ is being offered as an atonement for our sins. Remember Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement. It is the holiest day of the year in the Jewish faith when the Jews remember and celebrate the day Moses came down from Mount Sinai after praying for forgiveness for the Israelites, who had worshipped golden calf. Yom Kippur is the day  when the high priest, not a minister or a preacher, was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. The Holy of Holies was strictly seen as the dwelling place of Yahweh. It was considered so sacred that no one could approach it, except on that one day, the Day of Atonement. In that Holy of Holies, the high priest would place upon the scapegoat, symbolically the sins of Israel, and then the scapegoat is sent out into the desert to die, bearing with him, symbolically the sins of the people. After that, the high priest would slaughter another animal and he would splash the blood around the Holy of Holies, just like Moses did. And also in the manner of Moses, he would come out from the Holy of Holies, passing through the curtain that separated that place from the rest of the temple proper, and he would sprinkle the people there with blood. What’s the significance of all this? It’s a bloody sacrifice that symbolized people’s life, their reparation, the pouring out of their hearts and also the pouring out of God’s own life. This was central to Israelite life. 

At Mass, at the moment when the priest or the bishop raises and elevates the chalice, think of the priest like the high priest on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. But he’s in the Holy of Holies not with the blood of goats and calves, but with the very Blood of Christ, the Second Person in the Blessed Trinity. More to it, at Mass, we don’t just perform the consecration and then go home. Not at all! After the consecration, the priest, bearing in his hands, the Blood of Jesus, comes down from the altar, comes out from the sanctuary. What is that? In the Jewish religion, the high priest on the Day of Atonement, comes out from the Holy of Holies. To do what? To sprinkle the blood of slaughtered animal on the people. But at Mass, when the priest comes down from the altar and walks through the sanctuary, he comes not to sprinkle the people with Blood, but to offer the Blood of Christ to be drunk, to be consumed. At Mass, the priest offers a sacrifice of atonement for sins and offers the life-giving blood of God to the people of God. What is the purpose of this atonement? Our salvation! It effects our salvation. That’s how we are saved, that’s how we are reconciled with God. This great priestly act, which is re-presented sacramentally at every Mass makes salvation possible. 

So, don’t come to Mass simply to see your friends and buddies. Don’t come to Mass expecting to be entertained. Don’t come to Mass just to look around and see what you can criticize. Come purely and chiefly to be saved by the good God. My fellow Catholics, when you come to Mass, realize that what we are doing, this densely rich celebration, goes all the way back to Moses sprinkling blood on the altar and on the people. It goes all the way back to the high priest on the day of Yom Kippur offering animal blood for the expiation of people’s sins, and then coming out and sprinkling the people with the blood. In Jesus, we have a true high priest who goes into the Holy of Holies not made with human hands, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood. All of that informs what we do, which takes place at every Mass. And that’s what this feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus is meant to bring us. 

God bless you!