Many years ago, there was a holy nun, who went to the great Saint Teresa of Avila and was telling her how she wished that she had been alive at the same time that Jesus was walking around on the earth. She kept thinking what a joy it would have been to see his face, to hear his voice and just to be near Him. She exclaimed. “Oh, I would be a saint if only I could have been with Jesus!”
Saint Teresa looked at her with love and said, “My dear sister, have you forgotten that Jesus is still on earth, and that He lives near you - in the house with you (for there was a church in the convent where the nuns lived that had a tabernacle). Is not Jesus with us in the Most Holy Sacrament? Why then do you wish to have lived long ago, since that same Jesus who lived with Mary and Joseph lives also with you?
Today, we celebrate the solemn feast of Corpus Christi. It is three feasts in one: the feast of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the feast of the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the feast of the Real Presence of Jesus in this Sacrament.
Corpus Christi is a feast established for three purposes: 1) to give God collective thanks for Christ’s abiding presence with us in the Eucharist 2) to instruct us in the Mystery, Faith and devotion surrounding the Eucharist, and 3) to teach us to appreciate and make use of the great gift of the Holy Eucharist, both as a Sacrament and as a sacrifice.
Why did Jesus give us this sacrament in the first place? (1) Jesus promised to be with us until the end of time (Matthew 28:20). As Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” In the Eucharist he provides a visible sign and an effective means of him being present to us and us being present to him. (2) Jesus said that he came that we may have life and have it to the full (John 20:20). In the Eucharist he provides a visible means of communicating this life to us so that we can be fully alive both in this world and in the next. As Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day” (John 6:53-54).
In the year 1263 a priest from Prague was on his way to Rome making a pilgrimage asking God for help to strengthen his faith, since he was having doubts about his vocation. Along the way he stopped in Bolsena 70 miles north of Rome. While celebrating Mass there, as he raised the host during the consecration, the bread turned into flesh and began to bleed. The drops of blood fell onto the small white cloth on the altar, called the corporal. It was in the following year,1264, Pope Urban IV instituted the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, today’s feast Corpus Christi. That blood-stained corporal is preserved in the Basilica of Orvieto, north of Rome, in Italy.
These miracles are not the most important aspect of our spiritual life, and we are not bound to believe them either. And once the bread has become real flesh and wine has become real blood, we don’t need anybody’s help to believe in it. But the peak of our faith is to believe the consecrated bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Jesus. I can understand the difficulty of believing this. And this difficulty hasn’t just started either today or yesterday. We can see the very moment Jesus taught them saying, I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you (Jn 6: 53). Instantly a group of people went away from him saying, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” And no longer they followed him.
We are reminded that when God comes into our hands in the form of bread and wine and God uses us, unworthy, sinful men as His instrument. It is not our merits that keeps us with him, instead it is His unending love and mercy towards us.
As we celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, let us ask God to increase our faith and help us to be transformed more like him as we receive his Body and Blood. At the Sacred Table Jesus gives Himself to us so that through us He may give Himself to others. God bless you.