Corpus Christi

This Is the Way

I have said before, with regard to Mystery, that it is not necessary –indeed, not possible- to comprehend it, but rather –this is the correct approach- to allow yourself to be comprehended by it. For Mystery is a divine attribute, and by immersing ourselves in Mystery –by allowing ourselves to be encompassed by it- we are transformed by it. For our relationship to God is all about becoming more truly ourselves, becoming the people we are meant by God to be.

This journey into Mystery and becoming is amply –originally- illustrated by the journey of the Israelites out of Egypt, as summarized by today’s first reading, from Exodus. People often fail to appreciate the essential lesson imparted by the experience of the Chosen People. They hear the phrase “out of slavery” and think of it in modern terms, in terms of our modern –and I insist, corrupt- understanding of freedom. But some clarity may be gained when we read this passage carefully. Through Moses, God leads the people not out of slavery and into the Promised Land –for that promise is a remote goal. The primary goal is to shape them into the People of God. So he leads them first into

“the vast and terrible desert
with its saraph serpents and scorpions,
its parched and waterless ground”

And then there’s the food: that unfamiliar food. Manna. “Bread from Heaven”. We know how that went over: with incredulity and disgust. We hear that tone again in the Gospel today.

“How can he give us his flesh to eat?” Say the people shocked at Jesus’s assertion in this Gospel. And who could blame them? We are, once again, in the realm of Mystery –a central mystery of the Catholic faith- and like all mysteries, may be experienced at first as paradox, or even absurdity. But to enter into the mystery, to be encompassed by it, as mentioned before, is to see first of all with the eyes of faith. It is to be able to look beyond the particulars to the promise: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood

remains in me and I in him.” And entering into divine mystery is, once again, less about arriving than becoming.

The challenge for us, then, is much the same as it was for the Israelites: to put our trust fully in the one who makes the promise. And we do this, likewise, in spite of constant temptation to return to the slavery of a former way of life, and of the ongoing temptation to embrace some form of idolatry –some way to delude ourselves into grasping at something we can possess and control, or rather that will grant us the illusion thereof.

That, in sum, is the kind of choice we face: between mystery embraced in faith, or illusion possessed with certainty. Like the Israelites who faced the choice to follow Moses and serve God or return to Pharaoh and serve their bellies, we choose to become the people God calls us to be, and accept the fulfillment He promises, or choose to follow our own way, and some other, nameless, destiny. As the Israelites were fed by manna during their sojourn in the desert, we are fed by the Eucharist as we follow the Way of the Cross. And if the promise made to us is stated in different terms, the God who makes it is the same. That is why the Church places these readings together on this day, this feast of Corpus Christi.