This year’s readings for the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ – previously called Corpus Christi – give us a glimpse into the origins of the nature of sacrifice in the ancient religious world, when the emphasis was on the blood of ritually slaughtered animals sealing the divine/human covenant.  Worship in the days of Moses consisted of animal sacrifice and grain offerings, because that was what the Law specified, and Moses was iconic in following the Law.

From the description of the ceremony in the Book of Exodus – Moses cast half the blood over the altar and the other half over the people – we can see that the emphasis in ancient covenants was on the physical symbolism, and usually the more elaborate the more meaningful. However, readers will recall that eventually the Lord was not pleased with such sacrifice because it had become an end unto itself, whilst the real matter of the Law at the core of the covenant was being neglected: widows were being left out, orphans were not being taken care of, strangers were not being welcomed and the poor had become objects of scorn. There came a longing in the land for justice and mercy, which reached the ears of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah has recorded, “I want mercy and not sacrifice.” (Isaiah 1:11).

At the Passover meal on that festival day on which the Jews gathered annually to commemorate their ancestors’ deliverance from slavery in Egypt, recorded in Mark’s Gospel for this Sunday (Chapter 14), Jesus blessed bread and wine in the act we now know as the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, as he and his disciples ate together. No longer a sacrifice of bulls and holocausts, Jesus’ words and actions are now seen as mediating the fullness of salvation through his own Body and Blood, celebrated every day at the altar of his body. The Body and Blood of Christ are no longer sacrificed in an ancient ritual but are consumed by those who believe in faith. In the Sacrament of the Eucharist we meet Jesus, the Risen Lord, who comes to us under the elements of bread and wine.

To be invited to share in the Eucharist is to ‘come to the feast of heaven and earth, to the table of plenty,’ and to share in God's life. Speaking on the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ in 2022, Pope Francis said:

"Besides physical hunger, people have other hungers, ones that cannot be satisfied with ordinary food. The hunger for life, the hunger for love and relationship, and the hunger for eternity."

Pope Francis said that only the Body and Blood of Christ – in other words a relationship with Christ – can satisfy our yearnings. What he means is, when we have a relationship with Jesus, we will naturally want to follow him in discipleship, which means to bring forth good works. This is where the challenge comes for us: not just to come to the Mass and fulfill an obligation, but to go further and share in Christ's work:  to contribute to the support of the poor; to serve those who are mentally unwell, to welcome the stranger, to encourage those who are overburdened with worries and cares and debts – and to allow the needy around us to shake our tree even just a little.

Much has changed since the days when the Israelites wandered the deserts of Sinai. Then, the people passively ate the manna that miraculously fell from heaven. Today, actively participating in the sacrament of the Eucharist, our hope of eternal forgiveness and redemption is present to us daily through the ministry of the priest, standing in the place of Christ. God’s Word calls each one of us to share the Body and Blood of Christ with our neighbours, for the sake of a better world.