This Is My Body
The Feast of Corpus Christi
Dear Saints,
We have some important announcements for you this week:
The church is open! You're likely to find the doors unlocked when you come by, but if you'd like to check with me before your 3:00am visit then send me a note.
Masses in the church resume on Monday. Following social-distancing guidelines, weekday Masses will run as usual (8:00am every day). Sunday Masses will require a few changes for a while: Check out our new page for Masses at OLMC for more information - including TICKETING.
Our Drive-In Masses at Walmart continue... Join us again this Sunday at 9:00am or 11:00am.
The Outside Confessional schedule will soon be changed, but this week we will stick with Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday: 10-11:30am and 3-4:30pm.
This Sunday we celebrate Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.
The Feast reinforces what the Church teaches about the Eucharist, especially the reality of transubstantiation: that Jesus' words, "This is my Body... This is my Blood...," change bread and wine into his Body and Blood.
And so, Jesus is present whole and entire - body, blood, soul, and divinity - in the Eucharist.
When we receive Holy Communion - whether we only eat the sacred host (or any tiny piece thereof), or only drink from the chalice (or any small drop therefrom), or we both eat and drink - what we receive in the Eucharist is nothing more and nothing less than the actual body, blood, soul, and divinity of our risen Lord in its entirety.
This truth and more is contained in the great hymn of Saint Thomas Aquinas composed for the Feast of Corpus Christi at the request of Pope Urban IV. We won't be able to sing it this Sunday, but check it out here:
Laud, O Zion (Corpus Christi Sequence)
So, that's the skinny on the what of the Eucharist, but what can we say about the why of the Most Blessed Sacrament?
Saint Augustine, I think, said it best. Preaching in the 4th and 5th centuries, he reflected on "one of the deep truths of Christian faith: through our participation in the sacraments (particularly baptism and Eucharist), we are transformed into the Body of Christ, given for the world."
The point is that every time we receive the Body of Christ, we are transformed - or should be transformed - a little more fully into what we receive, so that the divine love that flows into us by our communing with Jesus might flow through us into the world.
Here's to our being and becoming the Body of Christ! What a tremendous gift... what a tremendous calling!
Love,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
PS Want more on the Real Presence? Check out this collection of teachings from the Fathers of the Church (dating back to 90AD) on the Eucharist.
Preparing for Mass?
Check out this weekend's readings:
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ
"The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb"
from The Ghent Altarpiece
by by Hubert and Jan van Eyck c. 1432