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From the Associate…
CORPUS CHRISTI
Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ, celebrated around the world since the 13th century. This feast is often marked by processions through the streets, among the most famous of which is the one in Orvieto, a town north of Rome in Italy. In 1263, so the miracle story is told, a priest was celebrating Mass in a nearby town, when a few drops of blood fell from the consecrated Host onto the altar cloth. That cloth can still be seen viewed in the lovely cathedral of Orvieto. On this day, thousands there process through the streets on carpets of red flowers with Christ's Body and Blood held high in adoration. The two famous eucharistic hymns by St. Thomas Aquinas, Tantum Ergo and O Salutaris, still used by us at solemn Benediction, were composed for the first Orvieto celebrations.
The Church brings us this feast each year to remind us of the astonishing daily miracle, one that we get used to and so grow over-familiar with: Jesus Christ himself, perfect image of the Father, is made present to us at the Mass under the form of bread and wine, and we take him into ourselves and are filled with his divine life.
This is not just symbolism. It isn't just that the bread symbolizes Christ's body and the wine symbolizes his blood, and so remind us of what he did for us by offering himself, body and blood, on the cross for our salvation. That would be a pleasant and interesting ritual, but there would be no miracle involved, nothing supernatural taking place. No, the Mass is something much more: we understand what the Church has for two thousand years understood, that during the celebration of the Divine Mysteries the bread actually becomes the body of Christ, and the wine becomes his blood. It is no longer bread and wine; now it is Christ himself fully present, in "body, blood, soul and divinity" as the Church has defined it.
This is why we genuflect when we come into church, why we kneel at the consecration, why we bow upon receiving communion, why we reserve consecrated hosts in the tabernacle. We are dealing with Christ himself, really and truly present. The consecrated host still looks and acts like bread, and the consecrated wine still looks and tastes like wine. But the bread and wine are gone. They are not what, to our eyes, they seem to be. They are now Christ, who is present sacramentally, or (same word in Greek)mysteriously.
We are reminded by this that the whole world is a place of mystery. Hidden realities lie all about us. Angels move to and fro from earth to heaven and back. Immortal souls lie hidden in physical bodies. God himself, the immortal and all-powerful and ever-present, is invisible to us. The beginning of understanding the world around us is to say with St. Paul: We fix our gaze upon what is unseen, not upon what is seen. For what is seen is passing away, but what is unseen is eternal. (1 Corinthians 4)
On this great feast, let us fix the eyes of our hearts once again, and with renewed faith and love, upon the One who is unseen at the Mass, unseen but very present, desiring us, longing to share his life with us, pouring himself out for us.
This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.
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