Corpus Christi

22 June, A.D. MMXXV

          We rejoice today to celebrate Christ’s greatest gift to His Church: His very Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. The Scripture readings and the prayers of today’s Mass emphasize that this is not only a gift to be received, but a gift to be worshiped, and the establishment of a new covenant between God and man.

          As we hear at every Mass, Christ commanded His Apostles, “Do this in memory of me.” “Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; … for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; … while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk; … tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison camp near [Munich]; … one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the [priests] have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy people of God.

          “It is because it became embedded deep down in the life of the Christian peoples, colouring all the [lives] of the ordinary man and woman, marking its personal turning-points, marriage, sickness, death and the rest, running through it year by year with the feasts and fasts and the rhythm of the Sundays, that the eucharistic action became inextricably woven into the public history of the Western world, [every one of whose great turning parts has been marked by “doing this.”] … This very morning [we do] this with [the same words used by the first missionaries to set foot on these shores, and more importantly yet, with the same words used by Christ Himself]. Yet ‘this’ can still take hold of a man’s life and work [wonders in it]. (Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy. London: Dacre Press, Adam and Charles Black. (1964 printing), pages 744-5).

          This, the action of Christ Himself made present in the celebration of the Holy Mass, has left a deep and profound mark on the world we inhabit because it is not just a meal at which we receive spiritual food, but the very presence of His saving action, his Death, Resurrection, and Ascension – the Paschal Mystery – the greatest events in history made present right before us by the Church’s handing down of what She has received.

          He tells us, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” As we have heard before, this is sacrificial language. The creation of the world in Genesis begins with a covenant with Adam and Eve, contained in their stewardship of Creation, a covenant they broke with original sin. So God establishes a new covenant with Noah, but the people go astray once more. The covenant established with Abraham becomes the covenant – the pact with God – of primarily reference for the Jewish people, especially as that covenant is renewed by God and Moses as they journey to the promised land. It is a covenant established with blood – the blood of the sacrificial offerings that is sprinkled upon the people as a symbol of their accepting their part of the bargain. Therefore, when Christ, as St. Paul relates, tells the Apostles to “do this,” He means that their participation in this pivotal moment on the night before He died is much more than a re-enactment or a symbolic gesture. It is the renewal of that pact between God and man upon which all of history turns.

          Isn’t it a bit much, though, to say that Christ’s command to “do this” means that if we miss one Sunday Mass and don’t confess, we will go to Hell? Let’s not forget that Jesus was Jewish. For the Jews, it was absolutely impossible to belong to the chosen people without participating in the Passover sacrifice. Those who were not sprinkled with the blood of the sacrificed lamb were not saved. When He says that His blood is the blood of the new covenant, He is saying that being sprinkled with His blood is absolutely necessary to belong to the new people of God, and thus for salvation. He did so not by inviting the disciples to accept Him as their personal Lord and savior, but through a ritual action that in-so-doing He established as necessary for salvation. We can see from the context of everything happening at the Last Supper that yes, Christ absolutely meant to establish the Sacrifice of the Mass as necessary for salvation.

A covenant is an unbreakable bond between two parties. Each promises something to the other. Christ makes incredible promises to those who receive His Body and Blood worthily, in a state of grace. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn 6:51 RSVCE).

          If we want to obtain these incredible promises, then we have to keep up our part of the bargain. First, we must live in accord with the mystery we celebrate. This means following Christ’s teachings, and seeking His forgiveness in confession any time we have committed a grave (mortal) sin before receiving Holy Communion again, that we might be worthy to approach the Sacred Banquet and be sprinkled with His blood. This is why St. Paul tells us, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself” (1 Cor 11:27-29, RSVCE).

          Likewise, in today’s sequence, St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that we cannot judge from the outside whether or not someone receives Holy Communion worthily: “Bad and good the feast are sharing, Of what divers dooms preparing, Endless death, or endless life. // Life to these, to those damnation, / See how like participation / Is with unlike issues rife.”

          Second, keeping our part of the bargain means a regular participation in the new covenant by our participation in Holy Mass. This is why to miss Holy Mass on a Sunday or Holy Day of Obligation without a very good reason – such as illness, needing to care for someone who is ill, or a physical impossibility in going such as a lack of transportation – or without a dispensation, is a mortal sin. God has promised to be faithful to us, and we must also be faithful to Him.

          Christ wants us to do even more than worship and receive His Body and Blood: He wants us to depend on this gift completely. The Apostles want to dismiss the crowds who gathered around our Lord today. They want the other followers of Christ to fend for themselves for their lodging and food. But Christ wants something very different. He wants them to depend on Him. For the Jewish members of the first covenant, belonging to God’s people was likewise a matter of absolute survival: Belong to the people of the covenant, or perish at the wrath of Pharoah or in the Red Sea.

          Likewise, for you and me, to belong to this new people, to this new covenant established through the Body and Blood of the Lord, is a matter of survival. Our faithful participation in the mystery of His Body and Blood – by making Sunday Mass the centerpiece of each week, around which our lives revolve just as the great events of history revolve around this still point of the turning world; and by solidifying that covenant by receiving His Body and Blood worthily – assure our belonging to His chosen people. Without that covenant, we are as helpless as the crowds in the desert. But with it, we can cry out with St. Thomas’s words:

          “You who all things can and know, / Who on earth such food bestow, /         Grant us with your saints, though lowest, / Where the heav’nly feast you show, / Fellow heirs and guests to be. Amen. Alleluia.”

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, A.D. MMXXV