Monday 11 June 2012

Corpus Christi - Tree of Life. Homily Fr. Raymond


Sunday, 10 June 2012
Fr. Raymond, Homily.  The Tree of Life  


The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) - Solemnity - Year B
Saint(s) of the day : St. Margaret of Scotland, Queen (+ 1093)
See commentary below or click here
Saint John Chrysostom : "This is my blood..., which will be shed for many"

Book of Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 14:12-16.22-26.


Raphael Disputation of the Holy Sacrament-La Disputa
----- Forwarded Message -----
From:
 Raymond  . . .
Sent:
 Sunday, 10 June 2012, 18:44
Subject:
 CORPUS CHRISTI  2012

The “Mystery of our Faith”, the Eucharist, is the greatest jewel in the crown of the Church’s Liturgical Year.

It is so rich and deep a mystery that it took two thousand years of gradual revelation to bring it finally to light. The People of God had to be prepared  in order to be able to receive this great Sacrament.  There is a gradual unfolding of the revelation of it in the history of salvation.  Surely if there is any mystery of our faith that would span the whole history of revelation from beginning to end it would be the Eucharist, because the Eucharist, is the Sacramental Sacrifice that sums up in itself the whole meaning and purpose of the Incarnation and Redemption.

The first veiled reference to the Eucharistic Mystery that we find in Scripture is surely to be found in the Book of Genesis.  There we read of the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden of Eden.  We can surely see the Eucharist as well as the Cross foreshadowed in this Tree of Life?  Surely this is the very first hint God gives us of the Eucharist.   The new Garden of Eden is the Church and the new Tree of Life is the Eucharist at the heart of the Church.  We read that this tree is surrounded by many other trees in the Garden, all of them “beautiful to look at and good to eat”.  But this tree stands in the midst of them all and is singled out as offering not only pleasure and nourishment, but as providing life itself – The Tree of Life.  Its companion tree, also found with it in the middle of the garden is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, suggesting perhaps that there is a morality, an uprightness, a holiness, associated with this tree of life; a holiness, a sacredness not to be violated.  The two trees are inseparable.  Where the distinction between good and evil is violated there can be no partaking of the Eucharist.  This too is foreshadowed in the expulsion from the Garden of Eden which is described specifically as being a barring of access to the Tree of Life.  We read that Man….“ must not be allowed to stretch out his hand next and pick from the Tree of Life also.”

Next perhaps we may consider the Eucharistic aspect of the distinction between the sacrifice of Abel and that of Cain.  There was nothing wrong with the sacrifice of Cain in itself.  He offered the fruits of the earth, a sacrifice that acknowledged man’s dependence on God for the sustenance and support of his life on earth, and that surely was a good and praiseworthy sacrifice.  Where Cain went wrong was in his jealousy at the favour shown by God to the sacrifice offered by Abel. This sign of favour, whatever it was, was in no way a negative rejection of the sacrifice of Cain but was rather a positive sign of the excellence of the sacrifice of Abel; a sign that was pointing to the future; to the perfect sacrifice of the Eucharist.  Because Abel, on his part, offered a sacrifice of blood, the sacrifice of a living creature from his flocks; a sacrifice which acknowledged that man owed, not only his sustenance, but also his very life and existence to his God.  There was the element of blood, the element of  life and death, in that sacrifice and surely God’s approval was something that pointed to the perfection of that other great and ultimate sacrifice of the Lamb of God; that supremely pleasing sacrifice which Is the other side of the Eucharist, a Eucharist which is at the same` time both sacrament and sacrifice. 

No doubt, if we look further in the book of Genesis with the Eucharist in mind we will find many other prophetic links with this great Sacrament.  But let us turn now to the Book of Exodus.  Here there is no problem at all in uncovering the links with the Eucharist.  There is the blood of the fist sacrificial paschal Lamb marking the dwellings of the Israelites, and there is, above all the miraculous bread of the desert, the ‘Sacramental’ Manna which sustained the people of God for forty years on their journey to the Promised Land. 

We find an echo of this also in the book of Kings where Elijah is fed with bread from heaven by an angel and is told to eat and drink or the journey would be too much for him.  “.....and he ate and drank and went in the strength of that bread for forty days and forty nights right to the mountain of God”.

Similarly we find an echo in the life of Jesus when he fed the crowds with miraculous bread lest they faint from hunger on their way home.

Let us then keep the idea of the Eucharist at the back of our minds as we listen to or read the Scriptures and we will surely be surprised at how often we see the mystery of the Eucharist being unfolded before our eyes.



Missale Cisterciense, Westmalle MCMLI

Breviarum Cisterciense, Westmalle MCMLI