Jun 3 - Corpus Christi

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – June 3, 2018

I –This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you.

R –I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.

II – The blood of Christ will cleanse our consciences.

A – I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord; whoever eats this bread will live forever.

G –This is my body. This is my blood.

+ After having celebrated the three major feasts of the Church year and the summation of it all last week with the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, today the Church  puts an exclamation point extraordinaire on the entire exposition and display of God’s amazing love for us, his people: today we celebrate his most enduring and most precious gift, that is beyond the comprehension of even the angels in heaven: we celebrate the astounding presence on earth of the very Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ: our Lord, our God, our Savior, our Brother and our Friend as our Eucharistic Food and object of adoration.

The very breaking into human history of God himself in the form of a man was spectacular enough – but the caring and loving providence that moved him to make sure that our budding spiritual lives would be fed daily with the most excellent food of all: the very Body and Blood of his Son Jesus, the Redeemer – is just plain amazing! And so not only did God come to redeem and then return to heaven, but he also came to stay until the end of time – he came to entrust his very real and substantial self, though Risen and in glorified form - to mere human beings to make present, administer and offer for adoration!

In choosing ordinary, sinful, weak human beings to be empowered to consecrate bread and wine and make it himself – Jesus does an extraordinary thing. And what we must remember is that no matter how ordinary, how sinful, or how weak of a human being any priest is, he is empowered by God to make present his Son on the face of the earth – and for this God the Father himself has the most sublime respect for him – for when He looks down and sees the priest, he sees His Son!

Now of course this puts a great burden on the priest: it is up to him to conform his life as much as possible to Christ the High Priest and Shepherd of his flock – so that his outsides match his insides. And it is up to the faithful sheep to pray for their shepherds – so that they can be true, authentic, genuine and holy manifestations of the very love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is ontologically what a priest is! [And so it is not coincidental that the final solemnity of the Lord in this time of the year will be celebrated on Friday with the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – it is from this source came our salvation, came the sacraments, came the Church, came the Divine Friendship that we are now privileged to be a part of].

And so to summarize this day’s celebration: it is by the saying of words, in the sacred context, with the authorization and mandate of Jesus himself that bread and wine become really and truly his very self for our spiritual nourishment; may our words of praise and thanksgiving and humble adoration fill the heavens not only this day, but every day of our lives, every day that we partake of this wondrous daily bread, this very reality of Christ our Beloved himself!

Amen! Praise God! Amen!