In today’s first reading, 1 Cor 11¨17-26, 33, St. Paul
reminds us that what he received from the Lord Jesus he hands on to us, namely,
“that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread and, after he
had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my Body that is for you. Do this
in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This
is the cup of the new covenant in my Blood. Do this, as often as you drink it,
in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”
At every Eucharist, we remember what God has done for us on
Calvary. We give thanks through Jesus Christ and we take and eat in obedience
to His teaching that “the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the
world….Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I
shall raise that person on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood
is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live
in that person.”
At every Mass the
Holy Spirit changes the bread and wine into Jesus through the consecrated hands of the priest. “It is the Lord,” each of us
at Mass can say as we ponder the act of consecration and what happens on the
altar when the words of Consecration are said. At that moment, God comes down from heaven to visit us in person, to share the fullness
of His life with us and the gift of reconciliation with our God. In the Eucharist, God transforms
us, purifies us, recreates us into the persons God designed us to be in His
creation of us and in His molding of us in our mother’s womb! O, what a gift is
Eucharist! O, what a gift is the Mass! O, the greatness and the generosity and
the mercy and the love of our God!
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