Corpus Christi - The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

In many places today, on this feast of Corpus Christi, at the end of Mass, there are Eucharistic processions around the church or even around the neighborhood. In 2007, the Diocese sent me to Mexico in an attempt for me to learn Spanish. I was studying in a program in Cuernavaca and my second week there was the week between Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi. There was continuous Adoration in the cathedral in town. At any given hour, there were no less than 100 people in the pews adoring our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. The Mass for the Vigil of Corpus Christi on Saturday evening began with a procession of the Blessed Sacrament around the cathedral and the town. There were thousands of people there for the event … each of them holding and waving red gladiolas. On Sunday, the actual feast day of Corpus Christi, two of my classmates and I went to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Again, I was amazed by the number of people and the celebration that was taking place. Someone described it to me in this way. The importance of Corpus Christi to the people of Mexico is like combining Christmas and the Fourth of July … it is a religious solemnity that the entire nation celebrates.

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Entrance Antiphon: Ps 81(80) – “He fed them with the finest wheat and satisfied them with honey from the rock.”

First Reading: Gen 14: 18-20 – “Melchizedek brought out bread and wine.”

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 110: 1, 2, 3, 4 – “You are a priest forever, in the line of Melchizedek.”

Second Reading: 1 Cor 11:23-26 – “For as often as you eat and drink, you proclaim the death of the Lord.

Sequence: Lauda Sion

Alleluia Verse: Jn 6:51 – “I am the living bred that came down from heaven says the Lord; whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Gospel: Lk 9: 11b-17 – “They all ate and were satisfied.”

Communion Antiphon: Jn 6:57 – “Whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood remains in me and I in him, says the Lord.”

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         And so, with that description of Corpus Christi in the back of your minds, I ask you now to close your eyes for a moment. Imagine that we are living a little over 2000 years ago in the first century. A person you know has extended an unexpected invitation to supper. You accept, but with some serious reservations, for in your first-century world, who you ate with was everything. Meals were very personal and very-defined cultural events. (That’s why Jesus raised so many eyebrows when He ate with sinners and tax collectors.) On the appointed evening you show up at the door, and as you enter you are astounded by a sight you have never seen before. You begin to back out the door, but your friend sees you and takes you by the hand. What astounded you was that around the table were women and men at the same table … a Greek and a Jew sharing a cup … a person in rich clothes handing bread to a person in ragged clothes … and at the end of the table sat a slave acting as if she actually belonged there. You are completely at a loss to explain how these people could be around the same table. You blurt out, “How is this possible?” and your friend answers with a smile, “We are all one in Jesus Christ.”

         In the early Church, the Lord’s Supper was an impossible experience for the simple reason that no class, no culture, no race, nor gender – in fact, no one – was excluded. Jesus was present to His early Church so that they could form these impossible reconciling communities. And you know what? Jesus remains present to us today in 2025 for the same reason.

         Jesus’ institution of the Eucharistic celebration put the “Good News” into the lived experience of His followers. The Jewish people were waiting for God to break into their world. The Good News that Jesus brought to them and to us is that God is with us now ... we no longer need to wait. The second part of the Good News was more difficult for the first-century Jewish community, and sometimes I believe it remains difficult for us today: The Good News of God’s presence leaves no one out. The Lord’s Supper at which no one was to be excluded put the Good News into the reality of people’s lives. The impossible was made a reality by the continued presence of Jesus Christ.

         The followers of Jesus who wrote down what He did, wrote down what He said, and wrote down what He intended, did not miss the communion / community connection. In the story of this weekend’s Gospel, Saint Luke saw the importance of details and reminds us that Jesus was always focused on helping people gather in reconciling communities. He said to His disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty.” He didn’t say, “Have the women sit here and the men over there,” or “Have the slaves serve the others and then they can have what is left.” He did none of those things. Jesus simply said, “Have them sit down in groups.” And that is exactly what happened. Saint Paul recognized that Jesus’ intention was to be with us so that we could form reconciling communities, in his famous words, “We are one body because we partake of the one bread.” Saint Paul understood this essential connection.

         Today, our Church struggles to remember that essential connection between communion and community. Catholics historically have preserved the awesomeness of Eucharist by insisting on the presence of Jesus under the form of bread and wine. Our modern Catholic Eucharistic celebration with its emphasis on “full, active, and conscious participation” can be a liturgy of both awe and gratitude. It can be a liturgy of awe at the choice Jesus made to be forever present to us in the everyday elements of bread and wine. And it can be a liturgy of gratitude for Jesus bringing us together, the people of God, in our united participation.

         Awe and gratitude ... Real Presence and welcoming ... reconciling and community ... these ideas were not separate realities to Jesus or to our scriptural writers. The Christian call is the same today as it has always been. Eucharist is the Sacrament that leads us to community, and we should be very careful not to allow it to be a source of division. That has never been its purpose.

         From its earliest days, the Church has recognized the presence of Christ in the Eucharist through the experience of the power of God’s Spirit to transform different and difficult people into the reconciling community of Christ’s body. May it happen that we all come together at this Eucharist to form the circle of Sacrament and community and community and Sacrament, which is only possible because Jesus is truly with us.

         And just one other thought. Today, when we come up to receive the Eucharist, take some time to consider the gift you are about to receive. As you join the line, walk up with hands folded … reverently … prayerfully … and without talking to the person in front of you or behind you or next to you. And when we are actually face to face with the minister about to give us Holy Communion, we should bow our heads to acknowledge the awesome, life-giving gift we are about to receive … when we hear the words of the Priest, the Deacon, or the Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion as they say, “The Body of Christ,” we need to respond “Amen” … affirming our belief in Who and what we are about to receive … and when we actually receive the Sacrament, we can receive Him in two ways … on the tongue or in open palm … we should acknowledge the gift that we are being given … and we should understand that this gift is not something we grab … nor is it something we take … this gift of Jesus Christ is something we receive.

         And so as you consider the great and awesome gift of the Eucharist, today on this Solemnity of Corpus Christi or each and every time you come to church, wouldn’t it be awesome if the awe and gratitude we demonstrate today is the same that is demonstrated on the streets of towns and villages in Mexico and in the processions being held today in churches in every city and town in the United States? Wouldn’t it be great if we celebrated the Eucharist like a national holiday like they do in Mexico? I think that perhaps somewhere along the way, we’ve all lost sight of the bigger picture. “… One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” On this feast of Corpus Christi, it is my prayer (and hopefully yours as well) that we can one day refocus, reclaim, and restore what was meant to be from the beginning.