CORPUS DOMINI
CORPUS HOMINIS

I have always been struck by what the writer and philosopher Elémire Zolla (1926-2002) said in an interview: «One does not steal from the table of a God to whom one has not offered oneself with full love». And it is true, the encounter with Christ in the Eucharist implies the availability for a full and total self-giving. It cannot be otherwise. His presence, all immolated, is reciprocal only for beings who enter into communion, for immolated beings. Anyone who doesn’t love has no access to his friendship. Also for this reason the Eucharistic liturgy begins under the sign of Trinitarian love, to which every faithful wants to conform: “Give us, Lord, to conform our life to the paschal mystery which we celebrate in joy” – prays the Friday collection of the V week of the Season Easter. The Eucharist is also the sacrament of the Christian call to unity with the Son (cf. 1Cor 1:9), which the Spirit – sent by the Father – makes effective by incorporating everything in him (cf. Eph 1:10) . Ista enim revelatio, ipsa attractio – wrote Saint Augustine. Revealing himself, he draws us to himself, introduces us to his presence to the point of then constituting his presence in the world, among brothers and sisters in humanity. This mystery is great – it comes to say using a Pauline metaphor (cf. Eph 5:32) – and leaves us amazed and amazed, as well as grateful and grateful.
At the heart of the Eucharist we therefore have the voluntary immolation of Christ, as we have said, who, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, gave thanks, broke it and said: “Take and eat it all of you: this is the my body…take it and drink it all, this is my blood». In the Eucharist, Jesus first of all makes a gesture: he breaks the bread. This is evidenced in all the institution narratives, to the point that the Eucharist was formerly called fractio panis. What does this gesture express? Certainly the solidarity of Jesus towards us. But not only. The fractio has above all a meaning of immolation. An immolation that takes place first of all between Jesus and the Father. Isaiah had prophesied that the Servant of YHWH would be broken (attritus) for our crimes (cf. Is 53,5). Jesus breaks himself before the Father as he carries his filial obedience up to the total gift of himself in death. If for us this appears to be a harsh, even cruel gesture, it is actually the gesture of total love. So, what Jesus, after breaking the bread, gives us to eat is the food of his filial obedience. And if it is true that the words of the consecration end by saying: “Do this in memory of me”, we understand that we too must break all rigidity before God, all resistance before our brothers and sisters, thus breaking our pride before the One who asks us to be like his firstborn Son: a broken loaf. We too must feed the brothers with the bread of our filial obedience to the Father.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Santa Maria – Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey