Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 22, 2025: Do this in remembrance of me...

Do this in remembrance of me…
Are we ready to give flesh to the Body of Christ with our lives? 

   Church tradition tells us that the institution of the Eucharist took place at the Last Supper, at which Jesus said to his disciples, This is my body that is for you – all of you! Do this in remembrance of me. Paul reminds the Corinthian community of these words of institution because they are not celebrating Eucharist appropriately and inclusively, as Jesus taught his disciples to do. The Corinthians seem to have forgotten the very point of Jesus’ sacrifice: as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. Jesus came to save humankind, becoming flesh, one with us, to save us from our sins; we enter into the sacrifice of the Mass to participate in his death and rising, that we might proclaim his death until he comes again. 

   We find echoes of Jesus’ sacrifice in a variety of biblical texts, in both the Old and New Testaments. When, in the Book of Genesis, Abraham intervenes in a war to save his nephew Lot and Lot’s family, Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem, brings out bread and wine and blesses Abraham. Psalm 110 will remind us of the lineage that results: You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek. Similarly, Jesus, in Luke’s Gospel, will take five loaves and two fish, bless them, break them, and distribute them to the crowd. It is not, strictly speaking, a Eucharistic miracle, but the loaves and the fishes prefigures the institution of the Eucharist that will come with Jesus’ passion, death and rising. 

   

   Do this in remembrance of me, Jesus tells his disciples at the Last Supper. In other words, remember me into the present, make me present in the world! Having ascended to the Father, Jesus leaves behind no tangible body to walk the earth; we his Christian followers are called to remember what the sacrifice of Jesus was all about – charity and mercy for all – and to embody that love and mercy as we embrace our communal identity as the Body of Christ. Do this in remembrance of me! Are we ready? 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com