From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 2013
Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. The feast calls us to focus on two manifestations of the Body of Christ, the Holy Eucharist and the Church. The opening prayer at Mass calls our attention to Jesus’ suffering and death and our worship of him, especially in the Eucharist.
The secondary focus is upon the Body of Christ as it is present in the Church. The Church is called the Body of Christ because of the intimate communion which Jesus shares with his disciples.
It appears as if some Apostles did not understand this dimension spiritually. That is why when Jesus told them that he wanted to have last supper with them since he would no longer be with them any sooner, the Apostles began arguing about power-who would be greater among them, in other words who would succeed Jesus.
This dispute is likely to have taken place in the absence of Jesus, but he knew what they were arguing about. “And he came to Capernaum: and being in the house he asked them, what was it that you disputed among yourselves by the way? Jesus told them: “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all” (Mark 9: 34-35).
In the course of the meal Jesus predicts Judas will betray him. When Judas asks, “Is it I?” Jesus replies, “You have said.” Later, he encourages Judas to do quickly what he intended to do, and Judas leaves the upper room.
They were eating bread and drinking wine a few times throughout the meal. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.” And then broke bread after blessing it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.
As Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical letter-Leo XIII – Mirae caritatis spells out, Eucharistic worship is the expression of that love which is the authentic and deepest characteristic of the Christian vocation. This worship springs from the love and serves the love to which we are all called in Jesus Christ.
The Eucharist educates us to this love in a deeper way; it shows us, in fact, what value each person, our brother or sister, has in God’s eyes, if Christ offers Himself equally to each one, under the species of bread and wine. If our Eucharistic worship is authentic, it must make us grow in awareness of the dignity of each person.
We must become particularly sensitive to all human suffering and misery, to all injustice and wrong, and seek the way to redress them effectively. In this way the Eucharist does not become a mere habit, and that we do not receive Him unworthily, that is to say, in a state of mortal sin.
Jesus in the Eucharist wants us to be one (John 17:21-24). He wants us to love one another just as he has loved us. In love he wants us to be patient and kind; not to envy or boast; arrogant or rude. Not to insist on our own way; not to be irritable or resentful; not to rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Yet many of us today are more impatient than patient. We struggle with impatience because we easily loose hope. This is when we do not get what we want. As a result of this hopelessness some of us end up in committing suicide.
People who commit suicide seek the end of the conscious experience, which to them has become an endless stream of distressing thoughts with which they are preoccupied. Suicide offers oblivion.
People who attribute failure or disappointment to their own shortcomings may come to view themselves as worthless, incompetent or unlovable. Rates of suicide increase during periods of high unemployment and high cost of living.
For them suicide provides a definitive way to escape from intolerable circumstances, which include painful self-awareness. It is a feeling that conditions will never improve, that there is no solution to a problem, and, for many, a feeling that dying by suicide would be better than living.
In the Eucharist we are to be kind, caring genuinely for others around you, wanting the best for them, and recognizing in them the same wants, needs, aspirations, and even fears that you have too.
Being kind is a vital way of making our own lives, and the lives of others, meaningful. Being kind allows us to communicate better with others, to be more self-compassionate, and to be a positive force in other people’s lives.
The first reading is taken from Gn 14:18-20. In those days, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, and being a priest of God Most High, he blessed Abram with these words: “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, the creator of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who delivered your foes into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
Second reading is taken from 1 Cor 11:23-26. “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” The cup is the new covenant in Jesus’ 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.
The Gospel is from Lk 9:11b-17. As the day was drawing to a close, the Twelve approached him and said, “Dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms and find lodging and provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.” He said to them, “Give them some food yourselves.” Click here to read Full text: Pope Francis’ Corpus Christi homily.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002