Breaking Open the News for Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ

The Way of Faith

Explain that God has made a covenant with the Jewish people and that the gifts of God are irrevocable.

In the news

White supremacist James von Brunn will be charged today with murder in the shooting death of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum security officer Stephen Johns, said Cathy Lanier, chief of the Metropolitan Police Department. (Holocaust museum suspect faces murder charge)

In the readings

Taking the book of the covenant, [Moses] read it aloud to the people, who answered, “All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do.” Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words of his. (Ex 24:3-8)

In the tradition

Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any [person], the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone. (Nostra Aetate, The Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, 4)

The Way of Faith

Explain that the Eucharist commits us to the poor.

In the news

Nearly 20 million children now receive free or reduced-price lunches in the nation’s schools, an all-time high, federal data show, and many school districts are struggling to cover their share of the meals’ rising costs. (More students on free lunch programs)

In the readings

While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” (Mk 14:12-16, 22-26)

In the tradition

But the presence of those who hunger because they lack bread opens up another profound meaning of this petition [in the Lord's Prayer]. The drama of hunger in the world calls Christians who pray sincerely to exercise responsibility toward their brethren, both in their personal behavior and in their solidarity with the human family. This petition of the Lord’s Prayer cannot be isolated from the parables of the poor man Lazarus and of the Last Judgment. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2831)