During the readings, I imagine you wondered,
"Who is this ‘Melchizedek’ fellow?”
He was a curious, shadowy, figure:
a king and a priest, whose origins no one knew.
He brought an offering of bread and wine.
He blessed Abraham and all his descendants.
Who is Melchizedek?
He is the foreshadowing of who would come: Jesus Christ.
> Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who has no beginning or end;
> Jesus, the first and true priest of all Creation;
> Jesus, the rightful king of the universe;
> Jesus, who offers the new and everlasting sacrifice
that is a blessing to all humanity.
Melchizedek pointed forward to something greater; and so do we.
You and I are the image, the sign, for our time,
that points ahead to the reality that is yet to come,
a reality that is vaster and greater than anyone can possibly imagine!
This is why, the language we use as Christians
is full of power even if we don’t realize it.
Here’s an example: you and I use the term, “Body of Christ,”
to speak of both the Eucharist, as well as ourselves.
Do we really think we are the same?
I can imagine you saying, “No! I’m not God! I’m not Jesus!
No one falls to his knees before me!”
That’s all true.
And yet—when you and I call the Eucharist, as well as ourselves,
"the Body of Christ” — we truly are describing the same reality!
This is because the Eucharist who we adore and receive
is already, and completely, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
Meanwhile you and are still "in process."
Here is the Body of Christ (the Cross),
Here is the Body of Christ (the Eucharist);
and here is the Body of Christ (the people).
This Cross is a sign of what Jesus did for us.
A tremendously powerful sign, yet only a sign.
The Eucharist is a sign too,
except the Eucharist is also the reality of what the sign points to.
Jesus, is truly and really here.
But, if you will, under a veil – the appearance of bread and wine.
His Sacrifice for us is “veiled” within the Mass.
Why is this so?
First, because: do you and I really want to see
the violence of the Cross?
Second, because even that graphic reality, while true,
is still not the whole of it.
The Son of God became human and surrendered himself for us.
In sharing his dying and rising, you and I become one with him.
The full depth of this reality is just too much for us:
So it is, as I said, “veiled” by the Mass
and the appearances of bread and wine.
The Sacrifice of the Mass, and the Eucharist,
Serve as a lifeline connecting us to that fuller reality,
drawing us onward toward it.
St. Thomas Aquinas called the Eucharist "the pledge of future glory."
Glory for whom? Glory for us!
I said a moment ago that you and I,
in calling ourselves the Body of Christ,
probably draw back from really thinking
we’re the same as the Eucharist—and of course, we’re not.
Not yet! I repeat: NOT YET!
But, that truly is what lies ahead for us.
No one said it better than St. Augustine:
If you want to understand the body of Christ,
listen to the apostle telling the faithful,
"You, though, are the body of Christ and its members."
So if it's you that are the body of Christ
and its members, it's the mystery that means you.
It is to what you are that you reply "Amen,"
and by so replying you express your assent.
What you hear, you see, is "The body of Christ,"
and you answer, "Amen."
So be a member of the body of Christ,
in order to make the Amen true.
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