Let us taste and adore Christ present here and now: the inexhaustible fascination of Venice is marked by this new and eternal covenant with God

“On the stump of the ancient memorial Jesus grafts the radical novelty of his redemptive sacrifice: “This is my body… This is my blood” (Mk 14, 22 and 24). In the semitic language “Take, this is my body” (Mk 14,22) simply and paradoxically means “This is myself.” By operating the substantial transformation of the bread and the wine into his body made into a gift and his blood poured out, Jesus anticipates the glorious passion on Golgotha.

In the Eucharistic supper his disciples participate in it beforehand. but we also, two thousand years afterwards, have the immense gift of joining it. Let us taste and adore Christ present here and now, winner over time and space, master of the cosmos. The blood of the Redeemer circulates through the Eucharist as a vital lymph in the Church…”

Homely given by H.E. Angelo Card. Scola, Patriarch of Venice for the Corpus Domini Sunday.

Ex 24,3-8; Ps 115; Heb 9,11-15; Mk 14,12-16.22-26

1. After rising early in the morning, Moses builds an altar and, aided by “young men of the children of Israel” (Ex 24,5), draws from the sacrificial oxen the blood which, after having been poured into basins, he is going to sprinkle half on the altar and half on the people. The people, summoned for this purpose, listens to Moses reading the Book of the covenant. Above all, the people consents to it by shouting in one voice “All the commandments that the Lord has given, we will obey” (Ex 24,3).
Let us, in this moment, pull ourselves away from any possible distraction in order to immerse ourselves into this sacred scene. What does it express?
In the Old Testament blood is life and belongs to God. It signifies that, because of the covenant, from now on the same life is participated by God and by His “firstborn” Israel. God and his people belong to each other because, in a sense, what is created between them is a blood relation. Thus, we understand the concluding act of that most ancient liturgical action, which Moses brings to a close with a sober but solemn statement: “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you based on all these words” (Ex 24,8).

2. “Not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood” (Heb 9,12) Jesus places himself as “the mediator of the new covenant” (Heb 9,15). The life that springs from His blood is eternal life. The blood of Christ has the disarming power of reality. In order to expiate for man’s sin, for our sin, Christ offers His own life. This is why Christ’s redemption, unlike the ancient liberation, is not transitory and does not need to be continuously renewed, but rather is unique and definitive (“an eternal redemption” Heb 9,12). “This is thus the man who in himself alone offered all that he knew was necessary for the fulfillment of our redemption, he who is at the same time priest, sacrifice, God and temple: priest, through whom we are reconciled, sacrifice, which reconciles us, God, to whom we are reconciled, temple in which we are reconciled” (St. Fulgentius of Ruspe. from the treaty: On the faith in Peter).

3. The sublime prayer pronounced by Jesus when he institutes the Holy Eucharist reveals forcefully that his Covenant brings us the gift of unending life.
On the stump of the ancient memorial Jesus grafts the radical novelty of his redemptive sacrifice: “This is my body… This is my blood” (Mk 14, 22 and 24). In the semitic language “Take, this is my body” (Mk 14,22) simply and paradoxically means “This is myself.” By operating the substantial transformation of the bread and the wine into his body made into a gift and his blood poured out, Jesus anticipates the glorious passion on Golgotha. In the Eucharistic supper his disciples participate in it beforehand. but we also, two thousand years afterwards, have the immense gift of joining it. Let us taste and adore Christ present here and now, winner over time and space, master of the cosmos. The blood of the Redeemer circulates through the Eucharist as a vital lymph in the Church and gives us a foretaste of an intimacy with God without any shadows and any boundaries.
And we, through our full, aware and active participation in the Holy Mass, are progressively educated to that “worship fit for a human being” (“spiritual worship” Rm 12,1) which is the offering of our whole life. Thus, nothing of what we live is banal if we receive it from His hands, but everything – every circumstance and every relationship – is taken over by the same sacramental power as the Eucharistic act.

4. Let us ask ourselves with a contrite heart: are we worthy of such a great gift? Do we really desire above everything else that our life take this Eucharistic shape? (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 70). Our way of participating in the Eucharist opens us up to share with our fellow human beings every aspect of life starting from the liberation that was inaugurated by the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let us begin by not forgetting the still enormous mass of people who do not have bread to eat.
In this solemn vesper, may these questions reach the heart of all the Christians of Venice, who by now have been engaged for five years in the Pastoral Visitation: let the Holy Eucharist make us rediscover the sweet Christ among us and in us.

5. Shortly we will carry in procession the sacramental Jesus in the heart of our city. We will do this so that His presence may bless our Venice, and Venetians and guests may adore God truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. With this gesture we want to remind visually Venetians and guests that the inexhaustible fascination of Venice is indelibly marked by this new and eternal covenant with God that lives and pulsates in the Eucharistic reality.
Venice, never forget your Lord, the Nicopeia Virgin, your saints!
Humbly proud of belonging to the new people of God that travels across history, we shall walk behind the white host certain that Jesus present and alive is the power that gives new strength to every human being. We too, the so-called post-secular and post-modern people, are pilgrims, more than ever. Why should we then forgo the Panis Angelorum, factus cibus viatorum? Amen.

English translation by Carlo Lanellotti