The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus, commonly known as Corpus Domini, is a telling invitation to view the blessed Eucharist as the wealth of what is human, corporal and finite.
By endorsing our frail, poor human nature, the Son of God participated in our limited condition, both historically as Jesus of Nazareth, and now sacramentally as Jesus Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father. Thanks to Christ’s presence in the consecrated bread and wine, humanity is loftily exalted and changed into divinity. The great Spanish mystic, writer and theologian of contemplative life, Saint Teresa of Avila, addresses Jesus as the “wealth of the poor”. “O Wealth of the poor, how wonderfully can you sustain souls, revealing your great riches to them gradually and not permitting them to see them all at once! Since the time of that vision I have never seen such great Majesty, hidden in a thing so small as the Host, without marvelling at your great wisdom”.
Christian tradition never separated the Eucharistic Jesus from the mystical Jesus as found in each “one of these little ones” (Mt 10, 42). Every Eucharist communicant is ontologically ordered to welcome and wash Christ’s feet in those of the poor. For instance, one of the most important early Church fathers, Saint John Chrysostom, writes: “Do you wish to honour the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk only then to neglect him outside where he suffers cold nakedness. He who said: ‘This is my body,’ is the same One who said: ‘You saw me hungry and you gave me no food,’ and ‘Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me.’ What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when he is dying of hunger? Start by satisfying his hunger, and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well.”
The same theme crops up repeatedly in the works of various Catholic authors, such as in the case of the slain El Salvadorian Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. “This holy Mass, this Eucharist is clearly an act of faith. Our Christian faith shows us that in this moment contention is changed into the body of the Lord who offers himself for the redemption of the world. In the chalice, the wine is transformed into the blood that was the price of salvation. This body broken and this blood shed for human beings encourage us to give our body and blood up to suffering and pain, as Christ did – not for self, but to bring justice and peace to our people”.
While it is right to give all our thanks and praise to the Eucharistic Jesus, every Eucharistic celebration impels us to hear the cry of the poor, to know their sufferings and ease their pain by our Christian solidarity, because the Eucharist is the wealth of the poor. As the Argentinean Archbishop José Maria Arancibia clearly pointed out at the XI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops five years ago: “On eating the Body and drinking the Blood of the Lord, which gives them new life, the faithful necessarily grow also in social commitment, to defend human life, family values, justice, solidarity and peace”.
Lord Jesus, be through us, the wealth of the poor. Amen.
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap