The Sundays after Pentecost feature two important feasts, last week the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, this week the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christie. Each of these great feasts offer to us different aspects of God. Last week the mystery of the three persons in one divine substance. This week is something much more tangible, the Eucharist which, though tangible to us as bread and wine, is nothing less than the body, blood, Soul and Divinity of the Lord Jesus.

How do we know that this is true? At the last supper Jesus directly told his apostles that the bread and wine was his actual body and blood, not some kind of representation. He told them to repeat the action which they did and in turn handed it on to successive generations, we know this as the earliest Christian writing say so as we see in the reading from St Paul in this week's Sunday Mass.

Why did Jesus offer his very self in the bread and wine? We all need food and drink to stay alive. Jesus gives us himself as food and drink to keep our souls alive along life's journey, a journey with a thousand snares that try to trap us in sin which strangles the divine live within us.

Jesus also gives us himself to join us to the divine life of God in this life. Jesus tell us that he is always one with the Father through the Holy Spirit. When we become one with Jesus in receiving the Eucharist, as Jesus is one with the Father, so are we. What a wonderful, beautiful and amazing gift.

Given our frailty and weakness we can never really be worth of this great gift and we acknowledge this during the Mass when we say "Lord I am not worthy", but we can prepare by loving God and our neighbour, coming to the Sacraments, particularly the Mass, but especially by coming to the Sacrament of Penance to be reconciled to God and each other and to experience the God's compassion and the gentle touch of his forgiveness.

As always, please be assured of my daily prayers for your needs and intentions.

Fr Chris