Texts taken from the Missal “On Your Word” May-June 2025
Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (s) (C)
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FIRST READING
From the Book of Genesis (Gen 14:18-20)
In those days, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine: he was priest of God Most High and blessed Abram with these words: “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who has handed your enemies over to you.” And [Abramo] gave him a tenth of everything. - The word of the Lord.
Commentary on the first reading
The sacrifice of Christ in the Mass, on which not only our salvation but the life of the whole world depends, was not a sudden announcement at the Last Supper: it had been foreshadowed in the Old Testament beginning with Abraham and gradually made ever more evident in the ritual sacrifice of the Passover lamb in the temple of Jerusalem. Therefore, from the beginning, the bread that would become the Body and the wine that would become the Blood of God had been foreseen: even the pagan Melchizedek offered bread and wine to the founder of the people of Israel, joining words of blessing to the gift. This was a distant foreshadowing of the Mass: even today the priest offers bread and wine to God, pronouncing words of blessing. Everything converges there, and the pagan world too is drawn into Christ's offering; it sees in him the Savior, in a distant foreshadowing. Today, in the fullness of time, we can and must turn to those who do not know Jesus, bringing them the good news that in him the ancient desire to be saved finds its fulfillment in the Mass, where Paradise opens and everything reaches completion.
SECOND READING
From the first letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11:23-26)
Brothers and sisters, I received from the Lord what I in turn handed on to you: the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread and, after giving thanks, broke it and said: “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper, he also took the cup, saying: “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. – The word of God.
Commentary on the second reading
The Mass is not one of the acts of Christianity, like one devotion among others or even an optional rite, but its heart and substance. Heaven and earth meet in the words of consecration that Saint Paul soberly reports to us today in his letter. The servant of God Don Divo Barsotti writes: “Life is the Mass. Everything exists only for this; the whole life of the world, the whole life of the Church has its sole purpose in this act.” It is as though all the immensity of creation, the entire history of humanity, and the whole ocean of divinity converged at this simple point, which is the Person of the Word. The act of the Mass is not a doctrine, but the life of Christ and therefore also our own. Only in him can we approach the Father, and only in Christ does the Father come to us. Jesus in the Eucharist is the way. This is a great mystery, but it is realized every time these words reach us from the altar: “This is my body, this is my blood.” Padre Pio used to say that if Mass were not celebrated anywhere on earth for one day, the world would end that very day. This is how the saints reasoned.
GOSPEL
From the Gospel according to Luke (Lk 9:11b-17)
At that time, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about the kingdom of God and to heal those who needed care. The day was beginning to decline, and the Twelve approached him and said: “Dismiss the crowd so that they may go to the villages and farms in the surrounding area to find lodging and food; here we are in a deserted place.” Jesus said to them: “You yourselves give them something to eat.” But they replied: “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people.” There were in fact about five thousand men. He said to his disciples: “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty.” They did so and had them all sit down. Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven, said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied, and the leftover pieces were taken away: twelve baskets. – The word of the Lord.
Commentary on the Gospel
Christ presents himself as food, and the multiplication of the loaves is its sign and foreshadowing. The ancient Jews had eaten manna in the desert for forty years, and Jesus had said that it served only to sustain them for the day, whereas he himself was the bread that came down from heaven for eternal life. Therefore, it is clear that without eating the Body of Christ, our life does not develop and we die spiritually. In the miracle of the multiplication, he does not compare himself to bread, but gives the sign that the Church's future life would be precisely this: distributing the bread of eternal life (himself) to the crowds, and that his ministers, the future priests, would have to provide this distribution. Notice the sequence: first Jesus speaks, then he heals the sick, and finally he gives them food. It is not enough, then, to listen to the word of God; it is not enough to be healed of a painful illness: we must nourish our inner life and receive the Holy Spirit by eating. In the end, the act of eating is easier than listening and also than being healed of an illness, and it is what we are called to do today: eat the Body of Christ with great devotion and faith!
