Corpus Christi
By Fr. Julio Gonzalez, SF.
What is the most sacred of a person? The first
time that I heard this question I thought: the most sacred of us must
be the soul. So I raised my hand and I said it: the soul. My teacher
smiled and asked me: can you see your soul? I said: no. Can you see the
soul of your friends? I said: No. Can you touch the soul of your
friends? No, I said. Well, then, how can you say that the soul is the
most sacred of a person? I recognized that I had no idea.
Now, what about if God is not the invisible God of
the Old Testament but the visible and close God of the New Testament .
The New Testament shows us that God made himself visible not as an
spirit but as a human being, taking our body and blood, in a way that
everybody could see him.
When the Church celebrates the presence of the
Lord through his body and blood, the Church proclaims our faith in a
person. We, Christians, follow a person,
not a book, not a spirit, not a ghost. The Lord chose our hands to work
and to heal, our eyes to see and to recognize us, our legs to walk and
to open new ways, our heart to feel and to love...
God has made the human body sacred at least twice:
first, the day he created us; and second, the day he became flesh,
taking on our body and blood. This is very important because when we
recognize the Lord among us in his body and blood, we avoid the
temptation of making of God an idea, a thought or a wish.
God is not a wishful thought. Why am I so sure?
Because if I welcome the presence of God in his body and blood I also
must welcome you. We cannot say that we acknowledge the sacredness of
he body and blood of Jesus, but we don't acknowledge the sacredness of
the person we have next to us.
And when I welcome you I acknowledge your
presence, your needs, the mystery that you are for me. All this, makes
our body and blood sacred. If we don't see
one another as a sacred being then we are only a piece of meat!
Some people were scandalized when Jesus told them
to eat of the new manna, of this new bread that came from heaven. They were scandalized not because Jesus claimed
something impossible for him to do, but because he was talking to them
as if He was God. For us this is good news!
It is sad to see the churches arguing about if
Jesus is in the bread and the wine, or if the bread and the wine are
Jesus..., because when we separate in different families, clans, and
groups, we miss the most important point: that the Lord is with us no
matter what, and he calls us to be one family, one church, as he is one
with father. "Be one as I am one with the Father," the Lord
says.
The Lord knew beforehand how difficult it was for
us to be together, to be faithful, and for the same reason he said:
"Take this all of you, and eat it, this is my body which will be
given up for you." Then, who am I to correct these words? Who am I
to say that Jesus is in the word but he is not in the bread? Who am I
to say that Jesus is in the waters of baptism, but he is not in the
wine?
We hear that there are many ways to understand
these words, but we, Christians, take these words following the
preaching of Peter and Paul, the preaching of the early fathers of the
church. Why? Because Jesus left us one church, not one hundred, and he
promised to be with this church always.
