Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ [June 3, 2018] Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

“Take it; this is my body” (Mk 14:22)

We often take for granted that we are created as a bodily creature. Our body is integral to our humanity and created by God as something good; we receive our body as a gift. We freely receive our body from our parents, and our parents from their parents and this goes on till we discover God as the source of this gift. Because our body is a gift from God, we are called to honor our body as we honor the Giver of the gift Himself.

Since the earliest time, the Church has fought against various false teachings that undermine the integrity and sanctity of the body. Early Christians stoutly defended the goodness of the body against the Gnostic sects that condemned the body as evil, a prison to our soul, and a curse to our existence. The Order of Preachers where I belong was founded for the salvation of souls. Some of my friends complain why we only save the soul and disregard other aspects of our humanity. I remind them that the Order was originally established to counter the Albigensian sect, and one of its basic teachings is that the body is evil, that suicide is a great means to achieve final liberation. To preach and fight for the goodness and integrity of our body is essential to the Dominican preaching, as it is to the Church’s preaching.

Unfortunately, the gnostic teaching grows and takes modern forms. Sanctity of our body is ever compromised as our body is trivialized and even commoditized. Human trafficking is one of the greatest abuses of our body. Young women, mostly from a poor background, are lured into prostitution and turned to be sex objects. Young children are forced to work in inhuman conditions in many countries. Organ harvesting has become most luxurious business involving the countless amount of money. There is a price for every organ we have. In fact, there is a nasty story in the social media of a teenager who sells his kidney to buy the latest model of iPhone. For some people, another additional ‘bodies’ in the wombs are just liabilities and hindrance to self-progress and career development, and thus, it is better to abort these ‘bodies’ before they grow and become bigger problems.

In celebrating the solemnity of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, we are invited through our Gospel reading, to go back to Jesus’ Last Supper. There, Jesus freely offers His body as a gift to His disciples, “Take it, this My body.”  He then asks these disciples to share His body they have received to the future generations of disciples. Jesus receives His body as a gift, and now, in His Supper, He passes this gift so that we may have a life. This is the foundation of the Eucharist, as well as the core of the Christian sexuality.

Husband and wife join together in marriage, and they are no longer “two but one body.” As both spouses face the altar of God, they recognize that their bodies are gifts from God, and by lovingly offering to their spouse, they honor God who created them. We oppose any pre-marital and extra-marital sex because unless our body is given freely and totally in lifetime marriage commitment, we are always exposed to objectify our body. A husband’s or wife’s body is not simply the “property” or object to satisfy sexual, psychological needs, but it is a gift from God that even leads us to a deeper appreciation of our own body. In marriage, husband and wife give their body as a gift to each other in love and honor, so that they may have life more abundantly and in fact, they may welcome a new body, a new life, a new gift, into their marriage.

Married life is one among several ways we may accept and offer our body as a gift. Even a celibate life dedicated to service of others is another way to offer our body as a gift. Like Jesus in the Last Supper, it is only by receiving our body as a gift and freely sharing it as a gift that we may have meaningful lives.

Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP