This month I’ve been asked to contribute Sunday homilies to the Homiletic and Pastoral Review. You can find the rest of the month’s homilies there as well. Here’s this week’s contribution:
Homily for the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (C)
I thought I’d begin today by saying a word about Melchizedek. I’d wager most of you don’t know much of anything about Melchizedek. It’s a safe wager because nobody knows much about Melchizedek. His biographical details are limited to what you just heard in the first reading. But Melchizedek turns out to be an important figure. In the first reading, in Genesis, he seems to come out of nowhere. It turns out, when we get to the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament, that this mysterious origin is what makes him interesting. The New Testament speaks of Melchizedek as a forerunner of Jesus, the great high priest who has neither beginning nor end. Melchizedek, the Letter to the Hebrews says, represents an eternal priesthood — the priesthood of Jesus Christ.
In fact, perhaps it’s surprising that Genesis would mention Melchizedek at all. Even more surprising is that it mentions the sacrifice that he offers — bread and wine. At the time, bread and wine were not particularly impressive sacrifices. In the ancient world, if you wanted to impress, you offered meat. Birds were OK, lamb was better, a bull best of all. Bread and wine were not the sort of sacrifice a king would brag about.
For Christians, of course, bread and wine have a very different meaning. We recognize them instantly as the elements under which the greatest sacrifice of all — the self-offering of Jesus Christ — is made. Perhaps there is something appropriate in the fact that the rite that Jesus gave us at the Last Supper uses rather humble elements. The prophet Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah, “He had no majestic bearing to catch our eye” (Is 53:2); perhaps the elements of bread and wine reflect the ordinariness of Jesus’ life. The Eucharist is both an astonishing miracle and a humble, almost shy, gift.
The paradox should not surprise us because in the Eucharist we receive Jesus; we meet him; we come to know him. In today’s Gospel passage, we read about the feeding of the five thousand. Several times throughout the Gospel, Jesus miraculously feeds the crowds. This Eucharistic action is woven throughout Jesus’ ministry; it was, and is, expressive of who Jesus is. He is the one who offers himself so that we might live. It is no coincidence that Jesus does the same thing on the night before he was to suffer. We cannot understand his sacrifice on Calvary without the Eucharist, nor the Eucharist without the crucifixion. Like Melchizedek, Jesus is a high priest. He is the high priest — priest, altar, and lamb of sacrifice, without beginning or end, who offers himself for us and to us. But unlike Melchizedek, he does not remain an ancient and distant figure. He comes to us here and now, on this altar, under the humble appearance of bread and wine.
Readings: Gen 14:18-20; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Luke 9:11b-17
June 22, 2025
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 