The Feast of Corpus Christi celebrates Christ with us in the Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood. From the very beginning men have found the idea of eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood difficult to swallow. When He first said this is what you must do to have life, as recorded in John’s gospel, we read that many of his own disciples left him over it.
Over the centuries people’s faith in Christ’s presence in the Eucharist has waxed and waned. There have been times when the belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist has been aggressively challenged. Much of the Church’s Liturgical tradition developed in response to challenges to the faith in one way or another, and this feast is no exception.
Maundy Thursday in Holy Week brings attention to the institution of the Lord’s Supper, but Maundy Thursday is overshadowed by the betrayal and Good Friday—so the joy of the Eucharist is eclipsed by the somber mood of Holy Week. And that is why another day was set aside to focus on the very sacrament which constitutes our being the body of Christ. This feast gives expression to our joy and rebuts those who deny this most holy sacrifice which is ever present among God’s people.
Perhaps there has never been a time in history when this feast was more needed than the present, when even many Christians who have been taught correctly about the Eucharist have ceased to believe.
Materialism is the new word for atheism in our day. An atheist-materialist does not believe in immaterial realities. It is a short step from there to the denial of the immaterial spiritual realities communicated through the material form in the sacraments. This denial is confessed by many Christians today as it was by the Gnostics in the first centuries.
Christ said “you must eat my flesh and drink my blood or you have no life in you,” and many left him that day. The early Church was persecuted because they were thought to be cannibals, and many were martyred for a little bite of bread and sip of wine: this was the sword they died upon.
Our Gospel that God has joined himself to creation and become man is a scandal and rock of offense. The Fathers of the Church proclaimed no less the scandalous revelation that we ingest in His glorified flesh and blood in the Holy Sacrament.
St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 A.D.)
-I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, WHICH IS THE FLESH OF JESUS CHRIST, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I DESIRE HIS BLOOD, which is love incorruptible. (Letter to the Romans 7:3)
-They [i.e. the Gnostics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that THE EUCHARIST IS THE FLESH OF OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again. (Letter to Smyrnians 7:1)
St. John Chrysostom (c. 344 – 407 A.D.)
-When you see the Lord IMMOLATED and lying upon the ALTAR, and the priest bent over that SACRIFICE praying, and all the people empurpled by that PRECIOUS BLOOD, can you think that you are still among men and on earth? Or are you not lifted up to heaven? (Priesthood 3:4:177)
-Reverence, therefore, reverence this table, of which we are all communicants! Christ, slain for us, the SACRIFICIAL VICTIM WHO IS PLACED THEREON! (Homilies on Romans 8:8)
-Christ is present. The One [Christ] who prepared that [Holy Thursday] table is the very One who now prepares this [altar] table. For it is not a man who makes the SACRIFICIAL GIFTS BECOME the Body and Blood of Christ, but He that was crucified for us, Christ Himself. The priest stands there carrying out the action, but the power and the grace is of God, “THIS IS MY BODY,” he says. This statement TRANSFORMS the gifts. (Homilies on Treachery of Judas 1:6)
-Let us therefore in all respects put our faith in God and contradict Him in nothing, even if what is said seems to be contrary to our reasoning and to what we see. Let His WORD be of superior authority to reason and sight. This too be our practice in respect to the [Eucharistic] Mysteries, not looking only upon what is laid out before us, but taking heed also of His WORDS. For His WORD cannot deceive; but our senses are easily cheated. His WORD never failed; our senses err most of the time. When the WORD says, “THIS IS MY BODY,” be convinced of it and believe it, and look at it with the eyes of the mind ….How many now say, “I wish I could see his shape, His appearance, His garments, His sandals.” ONLY LOOK! YOU SEE HIM! YOU TOUCH HIM! YOU EAT HIM! (Homilies on Matthew 82:4)
-Take care, then, lest you too become guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ [1 Cor 11:27]. They slaughtered His most holy body; but you, after such great benefits, receive HIM into a filthy soul. For it was not enough for Him to be made Man, to be struck and to be slaughtered, but He even mingles Himself with us; and this NOT BY FAITH ONLY, but even in every DEED He makes us His BODY. How very pure, then, ought he not be, who enjoys the benefit of this SACRIFICE? (82:5)
-…if everywhere grace required worthiness, there could neither then be Baptism nor Body of Christ nor the sacrifice priests offer…..now He has transferred the priestly action [of ancient times] to what is most awesome and magnificent. He has changed the sacrifice itself, and instead of the butchering of dumb beasts, He commands the offering up of Himself….What is that Bread? The Body of Christ! What do they become who are partakers therein? The Body of Christ! Not many bodies, but one Body….For you are not nourished by one Body while someone else is nourished by another Body; rather, all are nourished by the same Body….When you see [the Body of Christ] lying on the altar, say to yourself, “Because of this Body I am no longer earth and ash, no longer a prisoner, but free. Because of this Body I hope for heaven, and I hope to receive the good things that are in heaven, immortal life, the lot of the angels, familiar conversation with Christ. This Body, scourged and crucified, has not been fetched by death…This is that Body which was blood-stained, which was pierced by a lance, and from which gushed forth those saving fountains, one of blood and the other of water, for all the world”…This is the Body which He gave us, both to hold in reserve and to eat, which was appropriate to intense love; for those whom we kiss with abandon we often even bite with our teeth. (Homilies on Corinthians)
St. Augustine
-“…I turn to Christ, because it is He whom I seek here; and I discover how the earth is adored without impiety, how without impiety the footstool of His feet is adored. For He received earth from earth; because flesh is from the earth, and He took flesh from the flesh of Mary. He walked here in the same flesh, AND GAVE US THE SAME FLESH TO BE EATEN UNTO SALVATION. BUT NO ONE EATS THAT FLESH UNLESS FIRST HE ADORES IT; and thus it is discovered how such a footstool of the Lord’s feet is adored; AND NOT ONLY DO WE NOT SIN BY ADORING, WE DO SIN BY NOT ADORING.” (commentary on Psalms 99)