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ePaper created 2015-02-27, 18:37:22 | version 1.33.01
we can and must become one single bread, one single wine. We must all become united in Christ: one single body, as Saint Paul tells us: “Since there is one bread, we, though many, are one body: since we all partake in the one loaf” (1 Cor 10, 17). The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, a book written around the year 100, contains among its prayers the statement: “Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom” (IX, 4). “The mystery of the Passion of Jesus is hidden in the bread made of ground grain. Flour, the ground wheat, presupposes the death and the resurrection of the grain. Jesus Himself mentioned this deepest mystery when he said: “Truly, truly I tell all of you with certainty: unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and does not die, it remains alone. But if it does, it produces a lot of grain” (Jn 12, 24). In the process of being ground and baked, it carries in itself once again the same mystery of the Passion. Only through death the resurrection comes, the fruit comes and the new life. But, wine also speaks of the Passion: the vine must be repeatedly pruned to be purified in this way. The grapes must mature with the sun and the rain and must be pressed: only through this passion a fine wine matures” (BENEDICT XVI, Homily for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Domini), 15 June 2006). 110