Nothing Less Than God

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, June 22nd, 2025:
Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

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1 Corinthians
11.23-26

Brothers and sisters: I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my Body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my Blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

​Pause. Pray. Reflect.

This weekend, we celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi—the Body and Blood of Christ. This important feast celebrates one of the most challenging and important doctrines of the Catholic faith: that the bread and wine we offer on the altar is transformed (or transubstantiated for those of a more theological bent) into the actual Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, even though it maintains its appearance and taste (the accidents) of bread and wine. The Eucharist isn’t a symbol or a sign, but the real deal.

It feels unbelievable to us and we certainly wouldn’t be alone in that. In John 6:51, Jesus declares “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” At John 6:66, we learn that “many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with Him” because they found this teaching too challenging.

For us, separated by 2,000 years from this declaration from Jesus, this teaching is just as challenging. And indeed many struggle to accept the truth of it. We live in a day and age when we rely on facts, data, and science. The idea of believing something that we can’t truly verify seems impossible.

But we already believe so many impossible things: that God Himself would take on human flesh; that He would give His life for our salvation; that He conquered the grave and rose from the dead on the third day. The Eucharist is part of that work of salvation Jesus accomplished through His earthly mission. It is an enduring legacy of His presence—Heaven touching Earth daily in Masses around the world.

My true fear isn’t that I wouldn’t wrestle to believe in this foundational miracle, but instead that I would discount it. That I would receive the Eucharist and say my amen with the same carelessness that I give to my other mindless eating. I fear the part of myself that invites me to take this miracle for granted and treat it like a very special symbol. I’m afraid that, faced with my King, I would see only the outward appearance of bread and wine. That I would be like all those people who saw Jesus during His earthly ministry and declared Him anything less than God.

I pray that when I receive the Eucharist, I will always be aware of Jesus, who continues to humble Himself not just to human flesh, but to the form of bread and wine so that I can be nourished by Him, body and soul.




Stéphanie Potter

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