The Body and Blood of Jesus Sunday is Vaccination Sunday!
Exodus 24:3-8; Hebrews 9:11-15; 14:12-16, 22-26
It cannot come at a better moment, the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, 2021. For more than one year, we have seen the ravages of covid-19, and many ask whether it is a punishment from God. We have all borne the brunt of the virus, directly or indirectly. Some of us are survivors of the Coronavirus, many others have either been in the forefront of caregiving to patients infected by it or have suffered the loss of a dear one. Our activities have been reduced, our confidence that nature is in the control of science and technology is challenged, money has been scarce and freedom of association scaled back. What have we done to deserve this slavery to covid-19? An invisible virus threatens to snuff off human existence, and we panic.
The good news is: this Sunday is vaccination Sunday. Today, the virus of separation, slavery, morbid fear of other people receives a permanent inoculation. If you’re separated from anybody, invite him/her for a meal of reconciliation. If you are afraid of anyone, share a meal with him/her and that will bring you closer together. In the case of oppression, throw a party with much to eat and drink, and you will realize that we are not different, one from another – we all need food and drink to survive, both the weak and the strong, the master and the servant, male and female, children and the elderly. In fact, food and the need for food makes us all equal – without food, we all die. Therefore, vaccination against hunger is the meaning of today’s solemnity – no more hunger and hungry persons!
Vaccination Sunday, the celebration of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, is God’s inoculation against separation and separatism, hunger and starvation, slavery and servitude. Our first reading tells us of Moses’ instruction for a peace/communion sacrifice to be offered. In other words, the Israelites who, until recently were slaves in Egypt, suffered oppression of “us versus them” in Egypt, whose freedom was curtained and limited, are now free people. The sacrifice of peace/communion is a vaccination against hatred and vindictiveness; it is the foundation of love and reconciliation for future generations. In fact, the meat of the animal killed for peace/communion sacrifice is eaten by all those participating at the sacrifice. That meat creates a bond of love and peace among those eating the sacrificial animal and their God. Because God was invisible, a visible animal had to be sacrificed. There is peace and love, when we can eat together and celebrate together; the distance that separates us is mitigated and abridged, the warmth from each one of us drives away our coldness, and wine cheers our hearts to laughter and forgetfulness of past-bad-times!
If several animals were needed for peace/communion sacrifice, in order to feast for many people, God himself has become our meal! Instead of a vaccine from animal flesh, Jesus offers us an eternal inoculation and vaccine made from his Body and Blood. To fight against our hatred and mistreatments of one another, we need a vaccine of love and peace; to destroy our tendencies to oppress others and reduce them to nobodies (Egyptians versus Israelites), we need a vaccine of unity and respect. Typically, we form our vaccines by introducing an antidote into our system. For us Christians, it is by eating/ingesting Jesus Christ into our system that we vaccinate ourselves against the virus of vices and sin, so that only virtues will dwell in us. We keep eating the Body and drinking the Blood of Jesus Christ at every Mass/Eucharist, to get a booster from the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Our vaccine is for the creation of a hatred free world; a world of love, laughter, peace, laughter and mutual support.
In the vaccination of “Holy Communion”, the consumption of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, God rewrites the failed relationship between the Egyptians and Israelites of old – the relationship of master versus slave. Through the Holy Communion we receive at every Eucharistic celebration, God bonds with us and binds us to himself and to one another. By the reception of Holy Communion, we all become one in Jesus Christ. This vaccine is possible because God became man in Jesus Christ and shed his blood for the elimination of the virus of “us versus them”.
Although our first reading today seems to lay emphasis on the “sprinkled blood” against the altar, it is because food/meat had already been eaten, synthesized and absorbed into the blood providing energy for the whole body. “Blood” is the sign and symbol of life among the Jews, and the blood of the sacrifice was offered to God in the symbolic sprinkling of the altar with blood, the meat of the oxen sacrificed was consumed by those who were there with Moses. Analogically, the Body and Blood of Christ, which we eat and drink at each Eucharistic celebration, tell the story of our sustenance from the Body and Blood of Christ and our communion with God, through Jesus Christ.
In today’s gospel, Jesus gives a name to our vaccine, he calls it a “covenant in my blood”. Every “covenant” brings lives together and keeps lives together. The blood that flows in every Christian is a sign of the eternal covenant between God and humanity. It is not the blood of goats and bulls, according to our second reading, but the blood of our redemption wrought by Christ – Christ’s blood itself. It is the Blood of the covenant of eternal relationship between God and human beings. An anaemic body is a dying body for lack of blood. A Eucharistic-less church is an anaemic church because it is terminally ill and en route to death on account of blood cancer.
Blood transfusion and blood production are two ingredients to recover from in an anaemic condition. Jesus is the willing donor for our anaemic lives, because he died transfusing his blood into us; but blood production is dependent on the proper functionality of the body itself, not what was transfused into the body alone. This means that human beings have got their roles to play to overturn their anaemic situations, through constant eating of the Body and Blood of Christ – “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives forever!” From the food eaten, Jesus Christ himself, the body sustains its blood manufacturing industry. “For this reason Jesus is mediator of a new covenant,” according to our second reading. Through the death of Christ, we have a guarantee of constant blood supply for our lives and the prevention of anaemia provided we keep receiving the Body of Christ as food and his Blood as drink. Imagine God flowing all through you via your blood circulation!
Jesus ate his Last Supper not with angels but with sinners, Judas, Peter, Matthew, etc. Jesus makes himself available to you and me as daily food, though sinners, yet nourishing us for eternal life. On account of what Jesus did for you and me, making bread and wine become his Body and Blood for us: where is any room for boasting? Jesus comes to you and me and dwells in unbelievably ill-prepared places of our bodies in the most elemental of ways: why would I not do my best to be worthy of such a guest? Indeed, how appropriate our responsorial psalm today: “To you will I offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. My vows to the Lord I will pay in the presence of all his people!” Let us allow Jesus to reign in our lives! You will ask me: how do I do that? Here is a story to help you:
A story was told of a little boy preparing for First Holy Communion. The parish priest/pastor asked all the children for First Communion not to eat breakfast before coming to Mass, so that they will eat breakfast after Mass, in order to keep the Eucharistic fast, before their First Holy Communion. On the faithful morning of the First Holy Communion, just to make assurance doubly sure, the pastor asked the children whether they were all fasting. When he asked, “did any of you eat breakfast before coming to Mass”? A little boy answered in the affirmative. The pastor retorted, “why did you eat before Mass, against the instruction I gave not to eat before First Holy Communion Mass?” The little boy said this: “Father, my mother prepared bounded yam for breakfast this morning. Considering the weight of pounded yam, I decided to eat the pounded yam before First Holy Communion for fear that if I were to eat it after Holy Communion, the weight of the pounded yam will crush Jesus to death by asphyxiation; but now Jesus will come and sit on top of the pounded yam, after my First Holy Communion. The pastor was impressed by the theology of the little boy and his desire to have Jesus sit and reign over pounded yam in his stomach!
May Jesus reign in your life, by making him come first in all you do, and never let him be crushed to death or asphyxiated by earthly worries!
Assignment for the Week:
Could you feed a homeless or hungry person this week?