The Solemnity of Corpus Christi (the Body and Blood of Christ) is centred on devotion to Jesus Christ, who we believe is truly present in the Eucharist - body, blood, soul, and divinity. Today is an opportunity to renew our devotion to the Lord in the Eucharist and deepen our adoration of Him in mind and body.
What do we actually believe about the Eucharist?
There’s an apocryphal story, a different version of it is told all over the world, about a conversation between a Catholic priest and a non-Catholic; sometimes the story says it’s a Baptist, other times a Muslim or a Mormon or some other non-Christian, but the story is always the same. The non-Catholic says to the Catholic Priest:
If I really believed what you Catholics say you believe, that Jesus was truly present in the Eucharist, I would fall down on my knees and crawl to the sanctuary.
From the first century AD when St Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians until today, the Church has professed belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. We have it from the pen of the Apostle himself;
The blessing cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is a Communion with the body of Christ.
A communion, is a spiritual union; a joining together of the things of heaven with the things of earth; the sacred species, the bread and the wine, are transformed or transubstantiated into the true body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Wherever there is even a single fragment of the bread or a single drop of the wine is the entire Christ, God and Man, truly present amongst us. This is a powerful teaching and one which is hard to accept; God, the infinite, impossible to understand, impossible to grasp, divinity lowers himself to dwell in bread and wine. The Church has professed this belief from the beginning, and yet it is hard to believe, and it is hard to fully accept or understand.
In 1263 AD there was a German priest named Peter of Prague. He was a pious and holy man, but he had doubts about the doctrine of the real presence. He could not understand it. Peter was making his way to Rome on pilgrimage and was passing through the city of Bolsena in Northern Italy. He was celebrating Mass at the tomb of Saint Christina, when, as he spoke the words of consecration, the host (the bread) began to bleed onto his hands. Drops of blood trickled onto the corporal (the small linen cloth we unfold onto the altar to protect pieces of the host from falling onto the floor). Peter was confused. At first he tried to hide what was happening, but eventually he stopped the Mass and went to the nearby town of Orvieto, where the Pope was staying.
Pope Urban IV heard his story and sent investigators, before going himself to see the bleeding host and blood-stained corporal. Within a year, Pope Urban issued a bull, declaring today’s feast of Corpus Christi – the feast of the body and blood of Christ, he commissioned the great theologian St Thomas Aquinas to compose the music for Mass and the divine office for this feast and gave us some of our most powerful hymns to the blessed Sacrament, some of which we will sing in our procession this afternoon.
When heresies have sprung up around the Eucharist, saying perhaps that the Eucharist is just a symbol, or a memorial, or a spiritual unity without the miraculous change of substance, or something that depends on our faith and not on the infallible action of Christ through his priests, the Church has responded time and again with the same words; anathema, anathema, anathema; cast it out, cast it out, cast it out! Orthodoxy, received from Christ through his Apostles, and handed down over centuries, begins with the words Jesus spoke in today’s Gospel; my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him.
But God knows the weakness of our minds, and our inability to grasp this mystery fully, so he gives us the gift of Eucharistic miracles, like the one at Bolsena, over and over again to help us, to give us something we can see and touch and understand. Blessed Carlo Acutis, a teenager who was beatified three years ago by Pope Francis on account of his devotion to the Eucharist, is best known for creating a website that catalogued every one of these Eucharistic miracles, to spread devotion to the blessed Sacrament. And this is the key point, the reason why we have a Feast Day for the body and blood of Jesus; devotion.
We come back to the beginning, to the conversation between a priest and a non-believer;
If I really believed what you Catholics say you believe, that Jesus was truly present in the Eucharist, I would fall down on my knees and crawl to the sanctuary.
It is easy to say "I believe in the Eucharistic presence of Jesus" - but what we say has to be matched by what we do; by how we live our lives and how we act and behave in Church and at Mass. If we really believe what we say we believe, that Jesus Christ is truly present in body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Holy Eucharist then we have to receive Him worthily in body and in soul; with bodily and spiritual devotion to Him.
How do we receive Communion worthily? Are we ever worthy of such a gift? The answer of course is the same answer we give at the Communion at each Mass: Lord I am not worthy. We have not deserved the Eucharist, because we are unworthy, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed. We are not worthy, but Jesus makes us Holy – in the Sacrament of Confession, and in the penitential acts and absolutions of the Mass, Jesus heals us from our sins and makes us worthy to receive Him. The first step to worthily receiving Jesus in the Eucharist is acknowledging our own unworthiness, and preparing our souls to receive Him through prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and above all, through regular sacramental confession.
The next way we receive Communion worthily is bodily, by our gestures and actions at Mass. The Church asks us to humble ourselves before we receive Communion, not just to come up in line with our arms outstretched to take what we are owed as if we were standing in line for lunch, but bowing low or genuflecting, physically lowering ourselves as a sign of our humility before Jesus Christ. This sign is first of all for ourselves, to remind ourselves over and over again who we are coming to meet, who we are coming to receive. We aren’t standing in line for a bit of food – we are waiting to receive the Lord God Himself.
How can we respond to this? How can we receive Jesus’ body and blood reverently and in a worthy manner? When I was sixteen years old and on pilgrimage in Medjugorje, I was inspired by what I saw many older Catholics doing, and decided for myself how I would try to answer this question; I decided to do as Christians for over a thousand years have done. I decided from then-on to receive on my knees, allowing the priest to feed me the Eucharist rather than taking it to feed myself. It is a practice I keep up when I am not celebrating the Mass; even two weeks ago in Rome, on a day when I was unable to celebrate Mass, I attended Church and knelt at the rail with everyone else.
I want to be clear; I am not saying that to be a good Catholic you must kneel for Communion and receive on the tongue. What I am saying is the same as the late Pope Benedict XVI “Communion only reaches its true depth when it is supported and surrounded by adoration.”[1] When we make conscious decisions to adore the Lord, by little acts of humiliation; acts like bowing, genuflecting, kneeling, and allowing ourselves to be fed the Eucharist, we allow our Communion with Jesus to take root deep in our hearts. We copy his humility, we bow down before the Lord, and we show others exactly what we believe without speaking a single word.
We are creatures of body and spirit. When God became man, he took on our body and our spirit to elevate us, to lift our body and our spirit to be like Him. He achieved this by sacrificing his body on the Cross, by spilling his blood for our salvation, and by offering that body and blood to us as food and drink. He means to raise us up, body and soul, to heaven and the glory of God and the angels. We must receive him worthily in body and in soul; acting out what we believe, and letting it transform our lives.
The miracle at Bolsena inspired the Pope to institute this feast. It inspired some of the most powerful music in the Christian world. It inspired centuries of devotion to the Eucharist. Let it inspire each of us today to ask ourselves; how can I receive the Eucharist worthily, in body and in soul? How can I take this great gift to inspire others? Most people will never read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or the tens of thousands of pages of theology written about the Eucharist; the only catechism they will ever read is the one written by your actions. Today we are called to be witnesses to the truth, witnesses to the real presence of Jesus at the Altar.
Let us answer that call on our knees, crying out again to the Lord;
Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.
[1] Joseph Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, quoted in ‘Communion kneeling and on the tongue’ on the website of the Vatican Office for Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff: https://tinyurl.com/2p989cdb
Readings:
Deuteronomy 8:2-3,14-16
1 Corinthians 10:16-17
John 6:51-58
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