Homilies

The Mass of Corpus Christi

29 Jun 2015

Homily for the Mass of Corpus Christi
Holy Eucharistic Chapel, Duomo de Orvieto, 27 June 2015

Last year marked the 750th anniversary of the promulgation of the feast of Corpus Christi in the universal Church. A priest who had trouble accepting the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist was celebrating Mass in nearby Boslena when, at the words of consecration, the Host started bleeding. He went directly to Pope Urban IV, who was here in Orvieto. The Pope directed that the Host and linen cloth stained with blood be brought and on examination it was confirmed that this was no trickery. This prompted the Pope to proclaim the universal Feast of Corpus Christi and to commission St Thomas Aquinas, also in Orvieto at the time, to write prayers and hymns for the new Mass and Divine Office. “O Sacred Banquet,” he prayed, “in which Christ is received, the memory of his Passion is renewed, the mind is filled with grace; and we are given a pledge of future glory.” Today is a special opportunity to reflect upon this wonderful Sacrament, how it affects our daily lives and how we might better express our love and gratitude for it…

An ancient love-song known as Psalm 62 (63 in the Protestant numbering system) begins: “O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting and my body pines”. Christ is that food and drink we most deeply desire. As He says in John’s Gospel He is “the living bread come down from heaven”, and whoever eats and drinks Him has eternal life (Jn 6:51-58). Deep down, we all hunger and thirst for God’s life and goodness. The Eucharist is God’s answer to this yearning. 
But aren’t thoughts and words enough contact with God? No: spiritual and material beings like us need both words and bread (Dt 8:2-16). Only by becoming a bodily being could God express Himself in touch and tears, through soothing words and loud cries, in all the ways human beings do. Jesus is no ghost or theory: He is God communicating His life to us as a flesh and blood human being.

Jesus decided to continue this physical-spiritual connection with us through the sacraments. The greatest of these is the Eucharist, “the sacred banquet at which Christ is received”. Here Christ gives His all – His body, blood, soul and divinity (1Cor 10:16-17). Under simple signs of bread and wine we receive what St John Paul II described as “the unfathomable holiness of God”. This is why we approach with the humility of the centurion who said: “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof”.

Our Psalm continues: “Your love is better than life, my lips will speak your praise”. God gives Himself to us and in return we render Him thanks and praise. At the consecration the Sacrifice of Love anticipated on Holy Thursday, consummated on Good Friday, and victorious at Easter, is ours to share – ours to receive and to return to the Father. The Eucharist is our biggest Thank-you to God for sending His Son to save us – indeed, the only adequate thanks we could give – and like a loving parent God gives us the wherewithal to give our thank-you present to Him.

“My soul shall be filled as with a banquet,” sings our psalmist. More than our bellies the Eucharist fills our hearts, minds, souls. Amidst our busy lives we all need this spiritual recharging on a regular basis. But it’s not magic. If we fail to prepare well, we won’t get what we could from the Mass. St Paul is clear that we should only approach this wonderful sacrament worthily (1Cor 10:16-17). So we fast before Mass; confess all serious sins in Confession and less serious ones in the Penitential Rite as Mass begins; abstain from Communion if we are not well disposed; try to let go of grudges and distractions that block our receptiveness. We can also read the set Scriptures prayerfully in advance; attend Mass or visit the Blessed Sacrament during the week; and arrive early to pray before Mass.

The psalmist continues: “My soul clings to you; your right hand holds me fast”. The lovers’ hope – never to be parted – is our Eucharistic hope. Corpus Christi commemorates God giving His Word-made-flesh, Jesus Christ, in marriage as Bridegroom to the Church, to be her bodily and spiritual companion forever.

Forever. St Thomas Aquinas teaches us that the Sacred Banquet in which Christ is received has past, present and future dimensions: a memorial of Christ’s Passion past; our soul filled with divine life in the present; and a pledge of future glory. This “medicine of immortality”, this spiritual superannuation, gets us ready for afterlife in the future.

That future starts today. When the priest or deacon says at the end of Mass “Go forth, the Mass is ended” he’s not just saying “get out of here”! No, he’s saying: now unpack the Eucharist in your everyday life. Thank God for gifts received. Turn your gaze to your neighbour in need. Build a more just and compassionate society. Act in communion with God and the saints all week long.

Our Psalmist is not just in love but also in awe of his Beloved: “I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and glory… on you I muse through the night” (Ps 62:2,4,6). With similar passion St Francis of Assisi whose hometown and tomb we will visit today once declared: “Our whole being should be seized with awe, the whole world should tremble and heaven rejoice, when Christ the Son of the living God is present on the altar in the hands of the priest. What wonderful majesty! What stupendous condescension! …In this world I cannot see the Most High Son of God with my own eyes, except in his Most Holy Body and Blood.” 

This passion to know our beloved in the Eucharist drove the great mediaeval doctors to write their long treatises on the Eucharist. Bishop Rutger of Brandenburg described it as a pallium which both reveals and conceals Christ’s real presence. As he “pondered through the night” he concluded that it was out of mercy that Christ dresses His invisible presence in a visible pallium, yet veils Himself, too, lest we be disturbed by what we are receiving.  A few years later St Thomas Aquinas explained in a way still unsurpassed how bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ (‘transubstantiation’); but he was a devotee of that sacrament before he was its metaphysician. He understood that such love and awe must be expressed in hymns and bodily gestures.  So devotion to the Blessed Sacrament has evolved over the centuries to include prayer before the tabernacle, adoration, benediction, vigils and processions. One way we demonstrate love is on our knees. Like a young man proposing to his future wife; like a young knight giving himself in sacred duty, as he is knighted; like those who knelt before Jesus in His life-time; like Jesus Himself kneeling in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: kneeling expresses awe and trust before the mystery of God.

Thanks be to God for this wonderful Sacrament, this pallium that veils and reveals Christ and is “the source and summit of the whole Christian life”. Thanks be to God for your devotion to it. May our Eucharistic Lord hold you close to Him always!

1.In D.P. Guernsey (ed.), Adoration: Eucharistic Texts and Prayers throughout Church History (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), p. 62.

2.Bishop Rutger of Brandenburg, in Caroline Bynum, Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 56-57.

3.St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiæ, II-II, 168, 1; Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), pp. 190-1.