Scripture Reflections for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Year C, Lectionary 169

Hate feeling lost from the Sunday readings? Searching for a better explanation of the bible than what you heard from your pastor's sermon? Check out the following collection of audio, video, and text commentaries from various Christian experts for a better understanding of today's scripture that deal with:

Abundance • Appreciate • Banquet • Battle • Church • Communion • Community • Covenant • David • Desire • Elisha • Environment • Eucharist • Eucharistic • Exodus • Feed • Food • Freedom • Grateful • Kingdom • Liturgy • Manna • Meal • Melchizedek • Neighbor • Offering • Passover • Poor • Priest • Priesthood • Proclaim • Reconciliation • Remember • Repetition • Sacrifice • Salvation • Scarcity • Serve • Sin • Suffering •

Genesis 14:18-20

Psalm 110:1-4

“David is an anticipation of another priest-king in Jerusalem who will also restore the priesthood to all 12 tribes and it's not going to be a Levitical priesthood. It's going to be a Melchizedekian priesthood. And that priest is of course Jesus Christ.” -Brant Pitre

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

“because wine was not as readily available in all places as it is to us nowadays, although the Eucharist would be celebrated with bread and wine, it was not the case that there was enough wine to communicate that or to give the chalice or the cup to everyone participating in it” -Brant Pitre

“taking the Blessed Sacrament out of the church in procession is a statement of the belief that the church is there to serve the world. That Christ came for all people, not just catholic and Christians. This liturgical celebration, like all good liturgy, mirrors the service of the church to the world.”

Archbishop Malcolm McMahon. "Living Holy Communion." Torch. June 20, 2019

“The sacrament of love is also sacrament of death – Christ’s death through which we come to a new life in the love which is the Holy Spirit, in which we shall live for eternity”

Fr. Herbert McCabe. "Human words become God's Word." Torch. June 14, 2001

“The Eucharist is the moment now, now in the middle of things, we purposely bring the energy of both beginning and end to now that we might have the courage, energy, the conviction to make our way through this present moment. That's why we celebrate the Corpus Christ”

Bishop Robert Barron. "Jesus Yesterday, Today, and Forever!." Word on Fire. June 13, 2004

Luke 9:11-17

“while they were busy calculating Jesus takes action. An unexpected blessing and an unexpected feast for and with love. The love of Jesus, the love of God, the love possibility between those gathered there and dare I say those gathered here in cyberspace.” -Christy Hicks Aydt
“So why does Jesus make the Apostles do this thing that would have taken time and effort? Well, it's because he is arranging the people at the feeding of the 5,000 according to the same kind of groupings that you find in the first Exodus from Egypt.” -Brant Pitre
“We can make all the plans that we like but God often has other ideas. What happened when Jesus and the disciples reached Bethsaida may have ended up being far more effective than anything that they had originally planned.” -Fr. Geoffrey Plant
“in Christ Jesus he was willing to offer his body and his blood for the sake of the world...and all he asked from us is just a few scraps...Are you willing to give him what you can so that he can make something for us like never before?” -Fr. Tony Ricard

“Before Jesus performed this miracle on such a grand scale though, He did a very simple thing. He thanked His Father first. This is an important lesson for all of us, because Jesus recognized that all good gifts come from our Heavenly Father.”

Laura Kazlas. "Only Five Loaves of Bread and Two Fish?." A Catholic Moment. June 23, 2019

“We too often see the Mass as commonplace, as just something we should just do and yes, too often we don’t treat it and seek Him with the desire, and yearning, and love that He truly requires”

Joseph LaCombe. "What does the Eucharist mean to you?." A Catholic Moment. May 29, 2016

“We need forgiveness, and God gives us glory. We need to be restored to our humanity, and God gives us a share in His own, divine life. We need spiritual support to turn us from a self-destructive life, and God feeds us with Himself, moulding us into the image of His beloved Son.”

Fr. Peter Hunter. "Taking Pleasure in the things of God." Torch. June 1, 2013

“I find myself asking, 'what are my loaves and fish? My small offering in my family, relationships, neighborhood, workplace?' And then I ask God to help me discern the Spirit's presence and leading in my blessedness and brokenness daily and dutifully in prayer.”

Anne Muirhead. "The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ." Australian Women Preach. June 19, 2022

Overall Readings

“If we are to follow the example of Christ we cannot separate the true holy presence of Jesus in the Eucharist from the true holy presence of Jesus in our neighbor” -Jenny Wiertel
“Out in the fields scarcity turns into abundance, hungers are satisfied and things the disciples thought they could not do become amazingly possible. It can happen still whenever people gather, listen to the words of Jesus and break the bread.” -Rita Ferrone
“the Holy Eucharist is not a prize but a gift. The Holy Eucharist is not a reward for our good deeds but medicine to heal us of our shortcomings. The Holy Eucharist is a broken body for broken people who are ready to be mended to share in the life of God.” -Fr. Emmanuel Ochigbo
“like Mary, like Joseph, you too when you come up to the altar you make a manger, you make a manger and you too hold your savior in your hands and God would have it no other way. You are not a spectator of your own salvation. You are a participant” -Fr. Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ

“Believing in Christ in the Eucharist teaches us to look at the world through the eyes of faith. Jesus is present in the Bread, and with the eyes of faith we know also that he is present in our brothers and sisters, the migrant and the outcast, and that we, his people, divided in so many ways, are somehow also made one through his love.”

Kathleen Kollman Birch. "Corpus Christi." Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. June 19, 2022

“a covenant, in the ancient world, was essentially a conferral of kinship via an oath. The Eucharist confers divine kinship in the most direct way possible, by placing within us the very body and blood of God.”

John Bergsma. "Corpus Christi." The Sacred Page. June 18, 2022

“This is the other side of Corpus Christi: it isn’t supposed to just be Jesus who gives himself up. We, too, are to offer our loaves and fishes, our tithes, our hearts on the altar.”

Mary Ortwein. "Corpus Christi." A Catholic Moment. June 18, 2022

“So, as we partake of the Eucharist at Mass today, let us make this a truly human action, a sacramental action and a divine action.”

Fr. Frank Breen. "Feast of Corpus Christi." Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. June 23, 2019

“Given the critical importance of the global environmental crisis, a re-reading of the Corpus Christi story in this context raises questions not only of the need to address food shortages and world hunger, but of how closely connected those issues are to measures to protect the environment all around our global village.”

Fr. Steve Judd, MM. "Feast of Corpus Christi." Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. May 29, 2016

“To celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi is not only to celebrate the reality of the body and blood we receive at communion, but to acknowledge that through this gift we become ourselves members of that body of Christ in the world”

Fr. Richard Finn. "Whetting Our Appetites." Torch. June 6, 2010

“His body and blood sacramentally present are not primarily for adoration but for usage, to take and eat and drink. Jesus’s hunger to give love is expressed by having himself thus for us who reciprocally hunger and thirst for him.”

Fr. Theodore Taylor. "He Hungers to Love Us." Torch. June 7, 2007

“this paschal mystery is given to us not just as an activity we have to live out, but as a mystery we must become”

Fr. Timothy Calvert. "A Mystery We Must Become." Torch. June 10, 2004

“in our fallen sinful world we need psychologically and spiritually ways to express our contrition, our sorrow. The fact that we have altars in our churches, that priests come out in the vestment of temple priests and they perform a sacrifice on that altar, the holy sacrifice of the Mass, that's exceptionally important”

Bishop Robert Barron. "Sacrifice, Covenant, Banquet." Word on Fire. June 19, 2022

Richard Rohr. "The Meal of More Than Enough." Center for Action and Contemplation. June 23, 2019

Richard Rohr. "Feast of Corpus Christi—One Body, One Suffering, One Happiness." Center for Action and Contemplation. May 28, 2016

“God doesn't need our petty sacrifices but, but it pleases him to receive them for they are an expression of justice. They make us just. They establish the right relationship between us and God.”

Bishop Robert Barron. "The Sacrifice that Makes Saints." Word on Fire. June 6, 2010

“The Church is not an organization like that. The Church is an organism, it's a living thing. Christ is its head and its life. Christ is the life force that holds together a body. There's the great image: the Corpus Christi, the body of Christ.”

Bishop Robert Barron. "The Liturgy as a Display of God’s Justice." Word on Fire. June 17, 2001

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