While they were eating,Mark 14:22-24
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
"Take it; this is my body."
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
"This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
The Corpus Christi sermon sought after the disciples' likely reaction to Jesus' startling words at the Last Supper.
Since the Scripture from Mark doesn't provide us with their response, Father said that we are free to imagine. Put yourselves in the sandals of The Twelve at table and listen to Jesus as if for the first time.
No, I'm not interested. It's the wrong approach, the wrong question to ask. It's an unprofitable use of the imagination and a "busy work" exercise.
To ponder the disciples' reaction is besides the point, misses the point, is a worthless distraction.
Because the inspired author of Mark had absolutely no interest in the reaction of The Twelve, if he could even fathom it so many years later. His perspective is our perspective: he grew up with this, this Eucharistic meal. He knows nothing else. He knows of no time without it. No "before". As do we, those of us who are blessed enough to have grown up in the church, know nothing else, nothing less, than the Real Presence.
And that common knowledge is the emphasis on the Feast of Corpus Christi. That we share that faith from Mark's day to our own, in continuity. Not on some crazy speculation about the perspective of the first-time hearers, so short-lived. If you seek that curiosity, go to John 6:52.
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