Corpus Christi (The Body and Blood of Our Lord)

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Stay with us, Lord, for it is almost evening” (Luke 24:29).

This was the invitation of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus on the evening of Easter Sunday, addressed to the person who was accompanying them along their journey. They were weighed down with sadness, but they could never have imagined that this stranger who was with them was none other than their Master, risen from the dead.

Yet they felt their hearts burning within them (Luke 24:32) as He spoke to them and explained to them the Scriptures. The light of the Word unlocked the hardness of their hearts and “opened their eyes” (Luke 24:31).

Amid the shadows of the passing day and the darkness that clouded their spirit, this stranger brought a ray of light which rekindled their hope and led their hearts to yearn for the fullness of light. And so, they said, “Stay with us.” And He agreed.

Soon afterwards, the face of Jesus would disappear, but the Master would “stay” with them, hidden in the “breaking of the bread” which had opened their eyes to recognize Him.

That stranger continues to walk at our side. He continues to lead us to understand the Scriptures. He leads us little by little to a deeper understanding of the mysteries of God.

When we meet Him fully, we will pass from the light of the Word to the light streaming from the “bread of life”, the supreme fulfillment of His promise to “be with us always. until the end of the age” (cf. Matt. 28:20).

On this feast of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, the Church allows us to focus on the great mystery of the real presence of Our Lord, really, truly, and substantially present in the Sacred Host, Body and Blood, whole and entire, completely present in a sacramental way.

We have an Octave to reflect on this great truth, that the bread of life is truly with us.

There was a student of Engineering in Manila many years ago who was a Catholic but didn't know his Catholic faith very well. He found he was looking for something, but he didn't know what it was he was looking for.

So he became a Mormon and spent two years as a Mormon. But then whatever it was he was looking for, he found it wasn't in the Mormon faith.

So then he became a Baptist and spent another two years as a Baptist, but didn't really find what he was looking for.

Then one day he was reading John Chapter Six, and he read the words, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger, he who drinks of me will never thirst” (John 6: 35).

He began to realize, ‘That's what I'm looking for—something to satisfy my hunger and my thirst.’

He began to rediscover the bread of life, the Blessed Eucharist, in his own Catholic faith. This began to draw him back to Catholicism like a magnet.

He reconverted back to Catholicism. Some time later, he decided he wanted to become a priest, but when Cardinal Sin had heard that he'd been a Mormon and a Baptist, he wasn't very comfortable about allowing him into the seminary.

He had to go to a different university to study philosophy and theology. When it was clear that he was bona fide, he was ordained and accepted into the archdiocese.

His first assignment was in the chaplaincy of the university where he had studied Engineering. Every day in the Mass, when it came to the moment to hold up the Sacred Host, to say “This is the Lamb of God. This is He who takes away the sins of the world,” he would add, “This is the bread of life. This is why I left the Mormon faith and this is why I left the Baptist faith.”

But there were many Mormons and Baptists in that university, and they didn't like him saying these things. So they complained and he had to be moved to a different parish where he is to this day.

Through the “breaking of bread”—as the Eucharist was called in the earliest times—Christ makes Himself present within time; makes the mystery of His death and resurrection present.

The breaking of the bread “has always been at the center of the Church's life” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Mane nobiscum Domine, October 7, 2004).

The Church exists for the Eucharist. God transmits His love for us through the Eucharist, the bread of life.

John Paul II liked to say, “The Church draws her life from the Eucharist” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 2003). That's why we have this special feast.

The institution of the Blessed Eucharist took place on Holy Thursday. But the greatness of that event is overshadowed a little by Good Friday, Easter Sunday.

So the Church wanted to institute a special feast day, a little bit away from those events of Easter, to highlight the real presence.

There was a nun in Liège in Belgium several centuries ago, who began to get locutions from God about this type of devotion (St. Juliana of Liège). She talked to her bishop. He instituted this feast for that diocese. Later that bishop was elected Pope and he transmitted it to the universal Church.

We see Our Lord as “the living bread that comes down from heaven” (John 6:51). We receive Him in person as that living bread, “and with him we receive the promise of eternal life and a foretaste of the eternal banquet of the heavenly Jerusalem” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Mane nobiscum Domine, October 7, 2004).

“He who eats my body and drinks my blood will have life in him, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:54).

We're all called to that eternal wedding feast, the eternal wedding banquet. “Christ stands not just at the center of the history of the Church, but also at the center of the history of humanity” (Ibid.).

St. Paul says. “In him, all things are drawn together” (Eph. 1:10; Col. 1;15-20).

St. Paul VI liked to say that Christ is “the goal of human history, the focal point of the desires of history and of civilization, the center of mankind, the joy of all hearts, and the fulfillment of all aspirations” (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, December 7,1965).

We have to try and see all earthly realities in the light of Christ. In the Incarnate Word, the mystery of God and the mystery of man are revealed, said the Second Vatican Council (Ibid.).

“In Christ, humanity finds redemption and fulfillment” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Mane nobiscum Domine, October 7, 2004).

“In the Sacrament of the Eucharist, Our Savior, who took flesh in Mary's womb twenty centuries ago, continues to offer himself to humanity as the source of divine life” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, November 10, 1994).

Think for a moment what a great event it is when we receive our First Holy Communion. There's a culture in the Church that helps us to celebrate that in a special way.

Our parents dressed us in white and we dress our children in white, in schools or in parishes. We make a big fuss out of it. There's a great message there in those material things. John Paul liked to say we go to the great spiritual mysteries through physical signs and symbols.

Children may not fully understand what's taking place, but the material things speak to them—that this is something very important. If you have a child making their First Communion, make a big fuss out of that day. Prepare the child very well.

The spiritual formation that the child receives around that time may be the formation he will remember when he’s dying. It's a special moment in the role of parents and the preparation of the soul of that child for eternity.

The Eucharist, says Pope John Paul, is “a mystery of light” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 2003).

Christ describes himself as “the light of the world” (John 8:12). It's a quality that appears very clearly in certain moments, like the Transfiguration and the Resurrection, in which His divine glory shines out brightly.

Yet in the Eucharist, the glory of Christ remains veiled. It's hidden. Christ is hidden in the Sacred Species.

It's preeminently a mystery of faith. The priest says those words after saying the words of Consecration: “The Mystery of Faith.”

“Through the mystery of his complete hiddenness, Christ becomes a mystery of light. And thanks to that light, believers are led into the depths of the divine life.”

There is a light streaming from the Eucharist and a light streaming from the tabernacle that lights up the whole of our life.

“The Eucharist is light above all because at every Mass the liturgy of the Word precedes the liturgy of the Eucharist in the unity of the two ‘tables’, the table of the Word and the table of the Bread” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Mane nobiscum Domine, October 7, 2004).

Our Lord tells us, “My flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed” (John 6:55).

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that “the effects of the Eucharistic food in our soul are the same as the effects of material food in our body” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Question 79). It strengthens, maintains us in our health, gives us energy and nourishment.

We have to strive for that food. We need it. That food builds up our souls, helps us to grow.

When Our Lord talked about the mystery of His flesh and blood and that He was going to give it to people to eat, that was quite troubling to many of His listeners. “Many of them no longer walked with him” (John 6:60-66). The scandal of the Eucharist.

Our Lord turned to St. Peter and said, “Are you going to go away also?”

He replied with those very impressive words, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:67-69).

When we may be faced with the mysteries of life, things we don't understand, feeling at a loss, we could see, feel, that same need that Peter felt to go to Our Lord in the tabernacle, the sacrament of love, to find our consolation and our joy, and to realize that we're never alone because “I will be with you always, even until the close of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

Our Lord explains the Scriptures on that journey to Emmaus. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He shows how all the Scriptures point to the mystery of His person (Luke 24:27).

His words make the hearts of His disciples “burn within them” (Luke 24:32), drawing them out of their darkness and sorrow and despair. His words awaken in them a desire for Him to remain with them: “Stay with us, Lord” (Luke 24:29).

When the Scriptures are read in the church, it is Christ Himself who speaks to us. We have a holy hunger to hear those words, to listen to them, to reflect on them.

We have a holy hunger to receive the Blessed Eucharist.

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus were prepared by the Lord's words. Then later, they duly recognized Him at the table through the simple gesture of the “breaking of bread” (Luke 24:30-31).

The understanding of the Scriptures preceded that. And so, we listen to the Readings in the Mass before we come to savor the Eucharistic bread.

“When minds are enlightened and hearts are enkindled, signs begin to ‘speak.’” All the signs that are present in the liturgy that the Church gives us to speak to us—the candles, the music, the flowers, the altar linen, the beauty of the sacred vessels, the architecture of the church—all these things are important. We go to the great spiritual messages through physical signs and symbols (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Point 1146).

“The Eucharist unfolds in a dynamic context of signs containing a rich and luminous message. Through these signs the mystery in some way opens up before the eyes of the believer.”

The beauty of a monstrance, the beauty of a chalice, the beauty of a ciborium, the beauty of beautiful hymns.

“It is important that no dimension of the sacrament must be neglected” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Mane nobiscum Domine, October 7, 2004).

Anything you can do to enrich the liturgy in your parish church, in your outstation upcountry, try and do so. Through the richness of the liturgy, the signs speak to every soul who comes into that chapel or that church.

We may be constantly tempted to bring the Eucharist down to our own dimensions. “In reality, it's we who must open ourselves up to the dimensions of the Mystery” (Ibid.).

It's a very good thing to prepare ourselves for Mass, to prepare ourselves for Holy Communion with a remote preparation, and possibly with a proximate preparation. Or if we can't get to Communion physically, I like to think of making Spiritual Communions.

John Paul says, “The Eucharist is too great a gift to tolerate ambiguity and depreciation” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 2003).

One of the most evident dimensions of the Eucharist is that it's a meal. The Eucharist was born on the evening of Holy Thursday, in the setting of the Passover meal. Being a meal is part of its very structure.

“‘Take and eat’… Then he took a cup and…gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you’” (Matt. 26:26-27). In this way, it expresses the fellowship which God wants to establish with us and that we must build with one another. It's the sacrament of unity.

At the same time, it shouldn't be forgotten that “the Eucharistic meal has a profoundly and primarily sacrificial meaning. … Christ makes present to us…the sacrifice that He offered once and for all on Golgotha. Present in the Eucharist as the Risen Lord, He bears the marks of his passion, of which every Mass is a ‘memorial’” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Mane nobiscum Domine, October 7, 2004).

We say after the Consecration, “We announce your death, Lord, we proclaim your resurrection…” This is the mystery of faith.

“While the Eucharist makes present what has occurred in the past, it also makes us look to the future when Christ will come again at the end of history. This ‘eschatological’ aspect,” that looking forward aspect of the Eucharist, “fills our Christian journey with hope” (Ibid.).

“I am with you always, even until the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

We have tried to have great faith in the mystery of the real presence, that Our Lord Jesus Christ is really, truly, and substantially present in each part of the Sacred Species, in each little crumb that may fall away or each little drop of the Blood of Christ. That's why we have to take very good care with all of these things.

We believe that Jesus is there. That real presence “is called ‘real,’ not in an exclusive way, as if to suggest that other forms of Christ's presence are not real, but real par excellence, because Christ becomes substantially present, whole and entire” (cf. Paul VI, Encyclical, Mysterium fidei, September 3, 1965), in the reality of His body and blood.

A priest once had to try and decide if an intellectually disabled child was able to receive Holy Communion. One of the criteria that was given is that the child should be able to distinguish between an unconsecrated bread and a consecrated host. The priest brought the child into the sacristy, pointed to the crucifix, said, “Who is that on the crucifix?”

The child says, “That's Jesus Christ.”

Then he brought the child out to the tabernacle and said, “Who lives in there?” The child said, “Jesus Christ.”

The priest said, “What's the difference?”

The child said, “That Jesus on the crucifix in the sacristy—it looks like Jesus Christ, but it's not really Jesus Christ; whereas in the tabernacle, it doesn't look like Jesus Christ, but it is Jesus Christ.”

That child passed with flying colors. A rather difficult theological explanation that a theologian might have difficulty explaining, and the child explains it in very simple terms.

“Our faith demands that when we approach the Blessed Eucharist, we need to be fully aware that we are approaching Christ himself” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Mane nobiscum Domine, October 7, 2004).

We genuflect in front of the Blessed Sacrament. We prepare our souls in the Sacrament of Confession. We make sure our soul is clean and tidy and ready and pure to receive the Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

“The Eucharist is a mystery of presence. It's the perfect fulfillment of Our Lord's promise to remain with us always, until the end of the world” (Ibid.).

Lord, help us to appreciate the mystery. Help us to make sure that it's well celebrated, that every aspect of the mystery is looked after, so that the Mass can truly be set at the center of our spiritual life, celebrated in a dignified manner everywhere that it is celebrated, in accordance with all the established norms, with the participation of the assembly, with the carrying out of all the tasks that are meant to be there.

“The best way to enter into the mystery of salvation made present in the sacred ‘signs’ remains that of following faithfully the unfolding of the liturgical year” (Ibid.).

If we go to Mass regularly, then we'll see a beautiful pattern in the liturgical year. We'll savor great feast days like this one. We realize that these feast days speak to us.

In that awareness of the liturgical year and living it out, we “cultivate a lively awareness of the real presence of Christ, both in the celebration of the Mass and in the worship of the Blessed Eucharist outside the Mass” (Ibid.).

Hence, the importance of visiting the Blessed Sacrament at some stage in the day, realizing that Our Lord is there, and transmitting that message to children, so that we bring a visit to the Blessed Sacrament as part and parcel of our family life, whether we're going here or going there. Sometimes we make a special effort to go and visit Our Lord.

We transmit our faith in the real presence with our gestures, our genuflections, our posture, our bearing, and our tone of voice when we're in the church, and by going out of our way to spend a little bit of time with Our Lord Jesus Christ who is there, and to possibly give Him a few moments of silent company.

Thank Him for being there. In all the apparitions that Our Lady has made down through history, she's nearly always mentioned the great joy that her Son gets from little visits that people make to Him in the Blessed Sacrament.

That presence of Our Lord in the tabernacle has to be like a magnetic pole for us, attracting souls to Him who are ready to wait patiently to hear His voice and then, in a sense, to sense the beating of His heart. We’re told in the Psalms, “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8).

He's our great friend who never goes away, who can console our hearts when we feel lonely or abandoned. We come to realize that's not the reality.

If adoration is fostered in our parish with the exposition of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we have a great means to participate in that adoration, to give a good example, to foster our Eucharistic faith.

We could try to take time, especially this week, the Octave of Corpus Christi, to kneel before Our Lord present in the Eucharist, to bring our families there, in order to make reparation by our faith and love for all the acts of carelessness or neglect, and even the insults, that Our Lord may have to endure in many parts of the world.

May He be wanting to come to our tabernacle, to our soul.

St. Josemaría used to say we have to make our tabernacles like Bethany (cf. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 154), places where Our Lord longs to be, and also our souls.

Through adoration, we can deepen our own personal, and also communal, contemplation, drawing upon aids to prayer inspired by the Word of God, prayers that we find in the Missal, and other helps we have for periods of adoration, some of them composed by many of the great saints in history.

“Our faith in this God of ours who took flesh in order to become our companion along the way needs to be proclaimed everywhere, in our streets and homes, as an expression of our grateful love and as an inexhaustible source of blessings” (John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Mane nobiscum Domine, October 7, 2004).

You’ll find that in the tradition of the Church, the Octave of Corpus Christi has been an occasion for processions through streets, through towns. The Holy Father does this in Rome, as his predecessors did before him.

We could turn to Our Lady, whom Pope John Paul called the “Woman of the Eucharist” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 2003), and ask her that on this feast day and in the coming days, we might learn to treat the Body of Christ with that same joy and reverence and gratitude with which she treated the body of her Son.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GD