Father Thomas Welbers' Homily	Jump back to Homily Index
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, June 13, 2004 Genesis 14:18-20 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 Luke 9:11b-17	Listen to Audio

You and I have all had the experience of getting into a situation where we were doing what we know God wants, and yet we seem to come to the end of our rope, our resources depleted. We are totally inadequate to fill the need, and we want God to come to our rescue. “After all,” we say to God, “you’re the one who got us into this mess.”

That’s exactly the kind of helplessness and frustration that Jesus’ disciples must have felt in the story we just heard. It was Jesus, by his teaching and his works of healing, that brought these people out into the wilderness. And when they point out to him that they are hungry and needy, he just says, “Well . . . give them something to eat yourselves.”

You can sense the disciples’ frustration at being told this. “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.” They might have added, “That’s not even enough for us!” You can also sense a certain exasperation in Jesus’ reply, as if to say “After all this time with me, you still don’t understand how God wants to work!”

After telling the disciples to organize the crowd, turn them into small communities – family-like groupings – he takes the bread and the fish. Not only does he bless them, but he broke them, and then he told the disciples to distribute them.

Sometimes we picture this miracle as the sudden appearance of a whole lot of bread and fish, but the text doesn’t say that. It’s not described as a “multiplication of loaves.” Still just the five loaves and two fish, now broken into pieces. It says that the disciples distributed what little food they had, after Jesus had blessed and broken it, and it says it was enough. More than enough. After everyone had eaten, they discovered twelve baskets full of leftovers.

Some scholars speculate that the generosity Jesus had inspired in his disciples – their giving up their own meal – inspired others who had brought their own secret cache of food to do likewise, and to share what they had with others who had nothing. Perhaps so. And there’s a good lesson in that for us. That may be a valid interpretation, but it does go beyond what the text itself actually says. The story itself simply says that the original five loaves and two fish – blessed and broken – just kept coming and coming and coming and coming . . . until everyone had more than their fill.

Notice, however, that I keep emphasizing the importance of the words “blessed” and “broken.” That’s the key to what happened then, and the key to what continues to happen today when we celebrate the Eucharist.

Those who study the history of liturgy point out that throughout all of Christian history, the four movements of this story define the four movements of our celebration of the Eucharist. The offerings are brought forth, symbolically given to Jesus; they are blessed, and, most significantly, broken. Unless they are broken, they cannot be shared, and their transformation is useless. Our liturgical tradition has seen the breaking of the bread to be as important as the consecration. Without the breaking, the purpose of the Eucharist – our reception and our transformation –cannot happen.

The lesson for us in the breaking of the bread is simply that in the Eucharist we become what we receive, which is not merely the body and blood of Christ, but the body-given-up-in-sacrifice and the blood-poured-out-for-the-forgiveness-of-sins. We can’t merely keep Jesus at arms length anymore – he makes us one with himself totally and completely, or at least to the extent that we are willing to allow him.

In the Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass, notice that we pray for the transformation of the gifts of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. That part of the prayer comes right before we recall the story of what Jesus did at the Last Supper, and repeat the words of Jesus in giving us the Eucharist. But notice that, a few moments later we pray that the same Holy Spirit will transform us unto what we receive – that we will become one with Christ in his sacrifice and in his life and mission.

For this transformation of us to take place, we too must allow ourselves to be blessed by Jesus, which we truly are in receiving Holy Communion, and in so many other ways we experience his blessings in our lives. But we also must allow ourselves to be broken by him. We experience so much brokenness in our lives, often through our own sinfulness or the sinfulness of others. Many times we want to deny or run away from our awareness of brokenness, perhaps pretend it’s not there.

The meaning and power of the Eucharist, however, is that Jesus needs our brokenness in order to transform us into nourishment and gift for others. Has this ever happened to you? Is there any experience in your life when God transformed your brokenness into gift for someone else? Have you ever found yourself touched by someone who allowed God to transform their own pain into healing grace for you?

Can we trust that in bringing our brokenness to Jesus, placing our pain and perhaps the shattered fragments of our lives and our dreams and our ideals into his hands, can we trust that he will transform us into grace for others, that he will work through us for those who experience the same brokenness and need his healing power and nourishing presence?

© Thomas Welbers 2004

Here are some useful links, which provide material for the study of these liturgical readings, and reflections on their message:

The Text This Week, Body & Blood of Christ.

Daily Word of Life

The Center for Liturgy at St. Louis University

Lectionary Resource for Catholics