{"id":5024,"date":"2024-06-02T09:40:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T08:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=5024"},"modified":"2024-06-07T08:59:41","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T07:59:41","slug":"commentary-on-corpus-christi-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-on-corpus-christi-b\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on Corpus Christi (B) 2.06.2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie<\/a><\/h3>\n

Mk 14:12-16, 22-26<\/b><\/p>\n

On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to Jesus, \u2018Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?\u2019 So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, \u2018Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, \u201cThe Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?\u201d He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.\u2019\u00a0 <\/em>
\nSo the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.\u00a0 While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, \u2018Take; this is my body.\u2019 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, \u2018This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a very precious early Christian document called the Didach\u00e8<\/em>, discovered in its entirety only in 1873, though Christian writers through the ages always knew of its existence, and had passages from it that had been quoted by ancient writers.\u00a0 It was written sometime between the years 50 and 100, and so it is even earlier than some of the New Testament.\u00a0 It contains the very first use of the word \u2018eucharist\u2019.\u00a0 It is very moving to read this and to imagine the lives of the Christians who spoke and heard those words in the infancy of the Church.<\/p>\n

Here is part of what it says: \u201cAt the Eucharist, offer the eucharistic prayer in this way.\u00a0 Begin with the chalice: \u2018We give thanks to you, our Father, for the holy Vine of your servant David, which you have made known to us though your servant Jesus.\u00a0 Glory be to you, world without end<\/em>.\u2019\u00a0 Then over the broken bread: \u2018We give thanks to you, our Father, for the life and knowledge you have made known to us through your servant Jesus.\u00a0 Glory be to you, world without end<\/em>.\u00a0 As this broken bread, once dispersed over the hills, was brought together and became one loaf, so may your Church be brought together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

I remember that distant day when I \u2018made my First Communion\u2019.\u00a0 I remember waking up, having nodded off during the Mass, to find my candle dripping grease.\u00a0 But they had got on with things while I slept.\u00a0 Looking back today I think: During the many years since that time, they have got on with lots of things while I slept.\u00a0\u00a0 And I have to admit that I’m not very repentant about it.\u00a0 Some of the best things can happen to you while you sleep.\u00a0 The Scriptures say that God \u201cpours gifts on his beloved while they slumber.\u201d\u00a0 And Jesus said that the Presence of God (the \u201cKingdom of God\u201d) is like seeds that a farmer scatters in his field and that grow even when he is asleep.\u00a0 \u201cNight and day, whether he sleeps or wakes, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how\u201d (Mark 4:27).\u00a0 We ourselves grew like that, when we were in the womb, and during the early years of our lives.\u00a0 By day and by night our mothers watched over us; we were so sure of them that we could go sound asleep when we knew they were around.\u00a0 God mothers us too.<\/p>\n

We experienced our mother first as a source of food, and through that visible channel we experienced her as a source of love.\u00a0 God is mothering us, attracting us, trying to tame us frightened creatures.\u00a0 How do you tame an animal?\u00a0 By feeding it.\u00a0 Gradually the animal begins to trust you, begins to believe in your goodwill.\u00a0 We were (and maybe we still are) like little frightened animals.\u00a0 We have to be tamed into human society.\u00a0 Love is invisible and needs a visible channel.\u00a0 That visible channel is originally food.\u00a0 This wisdom of the body is taken up and exalted in the Eucharist.\u00a0 The food which is the Eucharist has the deepest significance.\u00a0 It is about our relationship with God, the ultimate womb from which our existence came.<\/p>\n

At the heart of that relationship, for Christians, is Jesus.\u00a0 The great 14th-century mystic, Julian of Norwich, not only called God our \u2018mother\u2019, but she called Jesus our mother!\u00a0 This may seem very strange, even weird.\u00a0 But, as always, she meant something luminous, and she had profound reasons for saying it.\u00a0 She did not mean that Jesus is like your mother.\u00a0 She meant the reverse: your mother is like Jesus.\u00a0 Your mother fed you from her own body.\u00a0 Our mother\u2019s care for us may well be the best image we have of God\u00a0 –\u00a0 and of Jesus.\u00a0 [See this month\u2019s \u2018Wisdom Line\u2019 on this website for a passage in which Julian calls Jesus \u2018mother\u2019.]\n

On this feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord let\u2019s not be too grown up to let the visceral images of the Eucharist play around our minds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie Mk 14:12-16, 22-26 On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to Jesus, \u2018Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?\u2019 So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5024"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8226,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5024\/revisions\/8226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}