Corpus Christi 2024
When Jesus knew that his death was approaching, he did what any Englishman or woman does: he thought of his will – or to use a word with a Latin root: his ‘testament’.
On the one hand, one could consider that the estate was not very big. There was the family house in Nazareth which had been his mother’s house. I would assume that this was put into the hands of those numerous cousins we find mentioned in the Gospel as “brothers” and “sisters” of Jesus. They must have kept it well enough since at some point in the Middle Ages the legend has it that angels transported it, or at least part of its walls, to Loreto in Italy, where it is still venerated. As for Jesus’ wardrobe, we know He was a man of few needs and we remember how His vestments were eventually disposed of by the soldiers at the foot of the cross.
On the other hand, though, Jesus was willing to hand on an infinite, immense, and divine heritage to as many as possible. Good news: we all are in Jesus’ will! Jesus had a great desire to share with all who believed in Him, and all who were to believe in Him, all that He was as the Son of God come in the flesh, and all that was His as the King of the Universe.
For this reason, He gave to His Church – represented by the Apostles – nothing less than His body, His blood, His divinity; in one word: His whole self. Jesus gave Himself up totally, not as a dead corpse, but as living and lifegiving presence. This is really a unique and new sort of will, a “new testament”, for Jesus did not hand on ‘things’ in remembrance of a dead man, but His living person. The testament of a man who was to be raised from the dead could only be a gift of life, the gift of His new life.
Jesus did not write down His will on paper or parchment. He expressed it through a sign we are very familiar with. In the room duly prepared by two disciples, He took the bread, blessed, and broke it, thus giving His Body. He raised the cup and invited all present to drink from it, thus giving His Blood. The priests of the Church will continue to do this gesture Jesus did once till the end of the world, for the Mass is not a new gesture, but the one gesture of Christ giving Himself out of love for the world.
Some people don’t like the Mass because it is always the same thing. We like it precisely because it is always the same thing: the same gesture and the same love which we have never finished receiving. Moreover, the Mass is always new, for Jesus’ love is always fresh and new. The words and the rites of the Mass are an essential part of Jesus’ heritage and of His presence. They are Jesus’ will revealed to us in the Scriptures, expounded in the prayers of the Church, and accomplished for us today in the Sacrament of the Altar. They are Jesus’ sacrifice once for all made present on the altar for us. They are His loving presence touching our deepest self and inviting us to silent communion in love with Him.
Today we adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and His Blood. And we learn what the Mass does not cease to teach us: to give thanks and to give ourselves.
Jesus Himself is our thanksgiving, our Eucharistic prayer to the Father to whom all glory and honour is given through Him, with Him and in Him.
Since we have been so much loved, how could we not in turn give ourselves totally, out of love? At Mass, we, too, write our will, our ‘testament’ which reads more or less like this:
‘I give to you alone, Father in heaven, and to all my Brethren in the one Body of Christ, the nothing that I am with all the love with which you loved me in your Son and in your Spirit. And since you gave to me all that is yours out of love for me, I give it to You in return out of love for you. May you be praised and glorified for ever and ever. Amen.’