CONGREGATIO DIVINUM CARITAS

My brothers and sisters in the Faith

Today is the solemnity of Corpus Christi, this day is given to us by Mother Church to remember and give thanks for the great gift, the Sacrament of Christ's Love for us, His Body and Blood sacrificed for us on the Cross of Good Friday.  Due to the gravity of The Church's observance of the Sacrum Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday), the celebration of the institution of the Mass on Holy Thursday is curtailed; today's feast is given to us in order to be able to celebrate it with acclamations of joy and thanksgiving for this heavenly food that sustains our pilgrim life on earth.

The Blessed Sacrament i.e. the Body of Christ presented to us through the mortal veil of bread is, together with the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Apostolic Succession, and aside from our own personal experiences and spiritual relationships with Him; the greatest sign of Christ's enduring love for us.  Through the Blessed Sacrament, Christ makes Himself present to us in a very real and corporeal sense; physically He exists in the consecrated Host and spiritually He exists there making manifest His love for us by this heavenly food.  As God gave the Hebrews "manna from heaven" to sustain them in exile, so Christ gives us "heavenly food" to sustain us through our sojourn here on earth.

Christ Himself taught His disciples the true meaning and efficacy of the Eucharist:

'When the people found Jesus on the otherside of the lake, they said to him, "Teacher when did you get here?" Jesus answered "I tell you the truth; you are looking for me because you ate the bread and had all you wanted, not because you understood my miracles. Do not work for the food that goes bad; instead work for the food that lasts for eternal life. This is the food that the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has put his mark of approval on him". So they asked him: "What can we do in order to do what God wants us to do?" (...) They replied, "What miracle will you perform so that we may see too and believe you? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, just as Scripture says he gave them bread from heaven to eat". "I am telling you the truth" Jesus said "it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven (some manuscripts have: what Moses gave you was not the bread from heaven). For the bread that God gives is he who comes down from heaven and gives his life to the world." "Sir" they asked him, "give us this bread always." " I am the bread of life" Jesus told them. "Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty"(....) . The people started grumbling about him, because he said "I am the bread that came down from heaven" (..) "I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they died. But the bread that comes down from heaven is of such a kind that whoever eats it will not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread I will give him is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live" . This started an angry argument among them. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" they asked. Jesus said to them, "I am telling you the truth; if you do not eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day. For my flesh is real food; my blood is real drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I in them (..)" Jesus said this as he taught in the synagogue in Capernaum. Many of his followers heard this and said "this teaching is too hard. Who can listen to it?" Without being told, Jesus knew that they were grumbling about this, so he said to them "does this make you want to give up? Suppose, then that you should see the son of man go back up to the place where he was before? What gives life is God's Spirit; human power is of no use at all. The words I have spoken to you bring God's life - giving Spirit yet some of you do not believe (...)? Because of this, many of Jesus' followers turned back and would not go with him any more. So he asked the twelve disciples "And you, would you also like to leave...?" (John 6: 25 - 67).

Many of the followers of Christ left there and then, many of them were angry because they could not imagine the possible concept in the words spoken to them. They perceived that Christ literally meant that mankind had to eat his flesh and drink his blood; that they were being asked to practise cannibalism.  Christ knew their thoughts and He made no attempt to tell them that they were wrong.  It is significant that Christ did not attempt to call them back, He did not say: ?Come back. You have misunderstood me. I did not mean the words literally? Christ had nothing to retract.  It seems by his actions and response to the grumbling of those who heard him, that He went further to confirm His teaching by saying: ?Does this make you want to give up??  Today He still asks this same question and we all of us know individuals once of the Faith who have since departed from it because of this teaching.

In our contemporary world, the concept of spiritual sustenance is still difficult for many to understand.  Certainly the concept of transubstantiation, the doctrine that teaches that Christ is made corporeally as well as spiritually present in the species of the Bread and Wine at Mass, has caused many people over the years to reject Christ and His Church, those who let their head govern their heart and spiritual self.  Yet it is clear that this teaching is the true and proper understanding of the Eucharist spoken of by Christ and passed down to us from the Apostles through successive generations of the Faithful.  Yet some of these same people will confess to believing the corporeal resurrection and physical ascension of Christ and still others outside the Faith will argue their belief in reincarnation...?

The Apostle Paul wrote:  

"For I received from the Lord the teaching that I passed on to you: that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took a piece of bread, gave thanks to God, broke it and said "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in memory of me (...)" This means that every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. It follows that anyone eats the Lord's bread or drinks from his cup in away that dishonours him, he or she is guilty of sin against the Lord's body and blood (...) For if people do not recognise the meaning of the Lord's body when they eat the bread and drink from the cup, they bring judgement on themselves as they eat and drink. This is why many of you are weak and ill, and several have died." (1 Corinthians 11: 23-30). AD 49. 

St Paul here clearly states that what he is writing for the benefit of the reader is the tradition of the Eucharistic doctrine as it had always been understood by the Apostles and disciples of Christ from the inception of The Church.  He retells the story of the institution of the Eucharist by Christ at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday, the commemoration of which we celebrate in today's solemnity.

Note also in this text, that St Paul proffers a warning to those who doubt the true meaning and efficacy of the Blessed Sacrament.  "For if people do not recognise the meaning of the Lord's body when they eat the bread and drink from the cup, they bring judgement on themselves" and it is clear here then, that St Paul regards the received teaching from Christ as to the true nature of the Eucharist to be another opportunity to reject or accept Christ as one's Lord and Saviour.  The bread and wine are not just symbolic but truly are Christ in corporeal form and to reject His presence in them is to reject Christ Himself as if He were standing before them whole as He did St Thomas after the resurrection.

It is usual on this feast day, after Mass has been solemnly celebrated, to process with a consecrated Host through the streets.  This ancient custom has always been both celebrational and an opportunity to bear witness to the Faith; an opportunity to process with Christ, the King of Kings and bear witness to His Love made manifest in the giving of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist and on the Cross.  It has become a custom in some local places to hold a "procession of witness" with the Host on Corpus Christi to bear testimony as Christian Catholics to our presence in the local community.  It is also customary for such processions of the Host to pause and bless the people with the Host, signifying Christ blessing them Himself physically through His Body - and a reminder too that at every Mass, this opportunity is made available to His chosen people in the Holy Communion.

Today's feast is an opportunity then for both celebration and witness, as well as thanksgiving.  It is an occasion to bear witness to the teaching of Christ Himself about His institution of the Eucharist; it is an event in which to celebrate the presence of Christ in our faith community at every Mass; and it is an opportunity to bear witness to the Faith itself, "that which has been taught and believed everywhere and by all" about the Bread and the Wine becoming truly, corporeally and spiritually, the Body and the Blood of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

I urge you all to prepare yourselves for this day, preferably with examination of conscience and penance and with faith, so that when you come to "eat the bread and drink the cup" you will not bring judgement on yourselves but rather affirm your belief in Him present in the Blessed Sacrament, who gave His life that you might live eternally in the love of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Fraternally for eternity with Christ

The Very Reverend Canon Jerome Lloyd OSJV VG