Cleansed by Blood

Hand sanitizer, cleaning wipes, face masks. For the last 15 months or so, we have become accustomed to seeing these things everywhere, and using them in order to protect ourselves during the pandemic. Even now, although restrictions are loosening and many people are vaccinated against the virus, many of us still find ourselves continuing to use these things – putting on a mask when you go into a store, using hand sanitizer frequently. Whether it’s a desire to practice good hygiene, or just mere habit, these things aren’t going to disappear any time soon.

Today’s readings speak of something else that cleanses and protects: blood. That sounds strange to us, but in the Bible and in the ancient world generally, blood was a kind of spiritual sanitizer, a cleansing agent that restored the soul. In the first reading, Moses orders the sacrifice of young bulls and then sprinkles the blood on the people, as a sign of their acceptance of the covenant with God. In the second reading, we hear the connection between this act– which was ritually repeated each year by the high priest as a sign of the Jewish people’s sorrow for their sin and the renewal of their devotion to God – and the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews makes the point that, while the offering of bulls and the sprinkling of blood was merely symbolic, the blood of Christ really saves. “How much more,” he says, “will the blood of Christ… cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.” Human beings now have been made clean not by the blood of bulls but by the blood of Jesus. In the Cross, we now have, as Jesus said in his own words at the Supper on the night before, a new and eternal covenant with God.

This is basic Christian doctrine, a belief that we share with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. As Catholics, however, this belief has also a deeper and more immediate meaning for us: the blood of Christ, and the covenant we have with God by his blood, is a reality that we recognize and receive every time we gather in worship. Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, our belief as Catholics that should be in the forefront of our minds every time we come to church: that in every Eucharist, what appears to us as merely bread and wine is in fact, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Why is that the case? Why do we believe that? Because it is the Lord’s Blood which restores us to right relationship with God. At every Mass, the one eternal sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is made present anew through sacramental signs. When we partake in this new covenant, we receive not the blood of bulls on our heads but the Lord’s own Blood on our lips, into our bodies, like the disciples did at the Last Supper. And like them, we are cleansed, and made to participate anew in the true worship of the living God.

Strasbourg Cathedral, 12th-13th cent.

A few years ago, a survey was published that found that most Catholics in the United States don’t actually hold this belief. According to this study, only about 3 out of 10 Catholics in the US know and believe the Catholic teaching about the Eucharist: that the bread and wine at Mass are truly and completely changed into Jesus’s Body and Blood. The rest – the other 7 out of 10 Catholics – either were confused about what Catholic teaching is, or didn’t believe it. If those statistics are true, they are deeply disturbing, and deeply saddening. The Church’s doctrine of the Eucharist is *the* doctrine that makes us who we are as Catholics. It is not just an optional theory, a belief that we can take or leave as we wish; it is the very heart of our faith identity.

What’s more, it is a belief that can form who we are – that, if we really believe it, can change everything about our understanding of ourselves and our relationship with God. Each Sunday, every time we come to Mass, if we truly hold in our minds and believe in our hearts that we are participating in the re-presenting of Jesus’s sacrifice on the Cross – that what we are receiving his very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – then it can’t help but strengthen and form how we live our faith in a deeper way. By the Eucharist, we can come to see our struggles as not just challenges that we face alone, but crosses that we endure through the power of Christ. Each time we come to Mass, the challenges and situations that weigh upon us can become offerings that we raise together with the Son to the Father. Everything about our life will be transformed as we begin to live out of the Eucharistic belief that the very life of Jesus is flowing sacramentally through us.

Friends, on this great solemnity, I pray that we never become so accustomed to the Eucharist that we approach it out of mere habit. Let’s make sure that, in our community at least, each of us individually and all of us collectively always recognize Who is truly and Really Present here in sacramental signs. What we do at Mass, Who we receive, is no mere symbol; it is the very Reality of Christ’s work of salvation, what he did long ago and still does now: the offering of his Blood to cleanse and protect us, his Body to renew and strengthen us. As we prepare to celebrate this Mystery anew in a few moments, may we always realize the truth of the Sacrament of the Altar and approach to receive him only with great humility, great faith, and great love.