Covenantal Presence, Corporal Union and Concrete Commitment
June 6, 2021: The Solemnity of Body and Blood of ChristExodus 24:3-8; Hebrew 9: 11-15; Mark 14: 12-16, 22-26
WITH US: That decision to stay with us is a Covenantal Presence... As St. Paul writes to Timothy, even if we are unfaithful, God is faithful forever. God has made a covenant with us throughout the ages, and finally God had sealed it and convalidated it with the very body and blood of God's Son, and that covenant is, to be with us forever! The Covenantal Presence of God with us is the highest form of security and protection that we can feel. It gives us the sense of sonship and daughterhood.
The call here is to be WITH OTHERS, specially when someone suffers, struggles, grapples and fights to live meaningfully. In the time of this crisis, with the terrorising Pandemic, how much are we able to assure persons who are affected, that we are with them. With the quarantine and social distancing, are we also emotionally and spiritually isolating and distancing ourselves from the others, specially those who are suffering?
IN US: The decision to stay with us is a desire for Corporal Union... Our Lord and Saviour becomes one with us, unites in our bodily existence too, enabling us to say, It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. It is a decision to be in us forever. It is a decision to purify us from within us, it is a decision to infuse sanctity within us, it is a decision to make us whole from within.
The call here is to be IN THE LIVES OF THE OTHERS. Just like the Son of God becomes one with us, we are called to empathise with others with whom we share this common home: the World. It is crucial with whom we side: with those who really need empowerment or with the dominant rows. Aren't we tired to see today those in governance and public administration, thinking predominantly in terms of economy and development, ready to stifle and set aside the poor, the weak and the economically insignificant of the society? It is ready to criticise them...but very important to examine our own inner most logic.
FOR US: The decision to stay with us is a Concrete Commitment that the Lord takes on our behalf; that we may be saved, sanctified and brought back to God. It is a call that Christ gives us to offer ourselves entirely to God, in every thing we are and everything we do. This is my body; this is my blood which shall be shed for you, says the Lord. It is a concrete commitment the Lord makes to be forever for us.
And the call is obvious: to GIVE OF OURSELVES FOR THE OTHERS. A truly Christian life is a life that is lived for Others, for it is in living for others that we live for God. The Others here would begin from one's immediate family, the faith community, the universal brothers and sisters, specially those who are weak and oppressed. Giving should remain an extraordinary act of goodness, but our very nature of being Christian.
The Body and Blood of Christ that we celebrate is a living reminder of the extraordinary love that God has to be WITH us, IN us and FOR us! Let us heed the invitation and become persons with others, in others, for others!