Corpus Christi - C 2025
Today we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. This feast always falls on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday but in the United States it is normally transferred to the following Sunday. It has been around for more than 800 years. In the 13th century Juliana of Mont-Cornillon, a Belgian saint, lived a quiet and prayerful life as a religious sister. She had a profound devotion for the Eucharist. One day in prayer she had a vision of the moon split in two. Initially, she didn’t pay much attention to the vision and tried to ignore it, but the vision kept returning. She contemplated and meditated upon this image which led to an encounter with Jesus. Our Lord told her that the gap in the moon was the lack of this feast day which He desired. And so, our Lord commissioned Juliana to work to establish the feast of the Corpus Christi. At first Juliana was hesitant and tried her hardest to deny that she was given this mission. Eventually she began to tell the leaders in the Church about her experiences and how our Lord wanted a feast to celebrate His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Most bishops and priests welcomed the idea of this new feast although some thought it was redundant since we celebrate the Eucharist every day at Mass. The feast of Corpus Christi was established as a local feast in Belgium. One of the clerics from Belgium was later named the pope, Pope Urban IV, and he established the feast of Corpus Christi as a universal feast for the entire Roman Catholic Church in 1264 – not just a local feast in Belgium. Unfortunately, Juliana did not see the entirety of the fruits of her labor since she died several years earlier in 1258. This feast day quickly gained traction as many were enthusiastic about it. St. Thomas Aquinas was commissioned to write the prayers that would be used at Mass as well as Eucharistic hymns. A couple of these hymns are Pange Lingua and O Salutaris Hostia which we still use today – we sing them every Friday at the beginning and end of adoration. Eucharistic processions started taking place in Germany in 1275 and their popularity quickly spread. Understanding the importance and significance of the Eucharist exploded and it bore a much fruit in the Church.
The Eucharist is the greatest gift given by Christ to the Church. It is truly Christ’s body and blood. The Eucharist may not look like the body and blood of Christ. But, as St. Thomas’ hymn says, faith will tell us Christ is present when our human senses fail. We may not be able to recognize with only our eyes that this is Jesus, but we firmly believe with faith that this is Him. We firmly believe that every drop in the chalice, every particle from the hosts, is the body and blood of Jesus. That is why we are so meticulous about purifying the sacred vessels and not washing them as ordinary dishes. God hides Himself in the Eucharist and our faith in the Eucharist informs how we treat this gift and how we act as Mass.
Some grow frustrated with the hiddenness of God. “Why,” we ask ourselves, “does God have to make it so difficult to see Him? Why must He hide Himself under the appearances of bread and wine?” It’s a fair question. I see two obvious reasons, at least, why this is the case. The hiddenness of God in the Eucharist demands of us an exercise of faith and it inspires us with an example of reckless generosity.
When we hear that the Eucharist demands faith from us, perhaps we grow a little impatient, just as we might be impatient when we are told that hard work is good for us because it toughens us up or suffering has a purpose because it makes for endurance. But we might react that way because we have a lack in our understanding of the nature of faith. It’s a darker kind of knowledge than reason as an intellectual process. But when we see faith as a gift infused in us by God, as a way of knowing God which reason cannot reach, we realize that we can understand God more deeply than by reason alone. Faith gives us a foretaste of Heaven, a taste of the life to come. And the more we ask for it, the more we receive it and are rooted in it, the greater a taste we have of the things to come. Faith is a mystery but that doesn’t make it any less valuable.
The Eucharist also shows the generosity and reckless abandonment of God. He gives Himself to us unresisting, freely, and totally. Hidden under the appearances of bread and wine He gives Himself to us unreservedly at the risk of being mistreated, annihilated, and disregarded or approached with apathy. And He wants us to reciprocate. He wants us to give ourselves to Him as freely as He has given Himself to us. And we don’t have to fear being mistreated or disregarded by Him. Although our hearts are in danger of growing tepid with apathy, He is never apathetic towards us. And the more freely we give ourselves to Him as He has given Himself to us, the more we find what our hearts restlessly search for.
God quietly and unassumingly hides Himself in the Eucharist. He is waiting for us, waiting for you. We are all searching for Him and we don’t have to look very far. He is found in every tabernacle and every monstrance. He is found on the altar and in the hands of the priest at every Mass where He daily renews His commitment to us His as He freely and generously makes Himself available. How will we respond?