{"id":1619,"date":"2013-06-01T18:04:01","date_gmt":"2013-06-01T08:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/?post_type=tribe_events&#038;p=1619"},"modified":"2013-06-01T18:04:01","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T08:04:01","slug":"solemnity-of-the-body-and-blood-of-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/solemnity-of-the-body-and-blood-of-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"Solemnity of The Body and Blood of Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Readings<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/readings\/060213.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">Genesis 14:18-20; Psalms 110:1, 2, 3, 4; First Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 9:11-17;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>St Luke paints a <b>down-to-earth picture<\/b> of Jesus walking the dusty trails of Palestine, &#8220;speaking to the crowds about the Kingdom of God,&#8221; &#8220;healing those who needed to be cured&#8221;, and even making sure they had enough to eat. This picture shows how <b>close <\/b>Jesus wants to be to us. That&#8217;s <b>a central message <\/b>of today&#8217;s feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>Back in first century Palestine, Jesus spent all his time <b>doing things for others. <\/b>His <b>whole life <\/b>was for others, for us. He came for us; he came <b>to be our Savior <\/b>and to be the <b>Friend <\/b>who will never let us down. And he wanted to make sure that we would <b>never forget <\/b>that. So he figured out a way to <b>remain with us <\/b>even <b>after <\/b>he died, rose, and ascended into heaven.<\/p>\n<p>He has remained with us not only in the holy Scriptures, not only in the living Church, not only in the examples of the saints, but even under the <b>humble and silent appearances of bread and wine. <\/b>In the Eucharist, he is <b>as close to us <\/b>as he was to those people who walked with him on the dusty roads of Palestine. In fact, he is even <b>closer. <\/b>Those people received bread at his hands, but we <b>receive the Lord himself <\/b>in Holy Communion.<\/p>\n<p><b>What more <\/b>could Jesus have done to show us how passionately he wants to be near us, to guide us, to strengthen us? Jesus <b>has not changed <\/b>since the day he multiplied the loaves for the hungry crowds. He has not all of a sudden become selfish, harsh, and unforgiving. He is as good and generous now as he was then.<\/p>\n<p>If Jesus has <b>chosen<\/b> to stay close to us, it is because we <b>need<\/b> him to be close to us. Jesus has <b>stayed among us<\/b> in the Eucharist, body, blood, soul and divinity. Today let&#8217;s <b>thank him<\/b> for this great gift, from the bottom of our hearts, and when he comes to us again in Holy Communion, let&#8217;s <b>promise<\/b> him that <b>from now on<\/b> we will make <b>better<\/b> use of it, even just a <b>little bit <\/b>better.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Readings: Genesis 14:18-20; Psalms 110:1, 2, 3, 4; First Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 9:11-17; St Luke paints a down-to-earth picture of Jesus walking the dusty trails of Palestine, &#8220;speaking to the crowds about the Kingdom of God,&#8221; &#8220;healing those who needed to be cured&#8221;, and even making sure they had enough to eat. This picture shows [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slovakcommunitysydney.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}