Today we celebrate the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. Many of us still refer to this day under the old name for it – Corpus Christi. I remember when we celebrated this feast day back in 2011 when I served last the pastor in Yazoo City when we began the Year of the Eucharist in our diocese. I love looking at the history of our faith, so I wondered how the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ got started in our Church. The idea for this celebration started with a nun in Belgium, St Juliana of Liége, who lived way back in the 13th century. Since the time she was a teenager, she had a great devotion to the Eucharist and longed for a feast day in its honor in our Church. What we celebrate today can be traced to this nun, as her idea was passed down to Pope Urban IV, who declared Corpus Christi to be a universal feast in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in 1264.
Back in the 13th century, Sister Juliana saw a world where there was a lot of irreverent and sacrilegious behavior toward the Blessed Sacrament. She hoped that the believers who were seeking love, truth, and piety in their lives would be able to draw inspiration and strength from the Most Holy Eucharist. She saw a world where many people were drawn to heresies and were becoming cold in their faith. That may have described the 13th century, but it also describes the world today as well. Thus, it is so relevant to our day and time that we celebrate the Body and Blood of Christ in such a special way today.
I recently read a book about the saints by the author Anne Gordon entitled A Book of the Saints: True Stories of How They Touch Our Lives. She states that she long ago realized in her life of faith, that “unless we are clear about what we do and do not believe,…it is quite impossible to live with any degree of depth, conviction, or purpose” in life. Our Church and we as Catholics are very clear in what we believe in the Eucharist, the real presence of Jesus’ Body and Blood, and how this is the source and summit of our lives of faith and what we believe as Catholics. We believe this, but is this a reality in our daily lives?
When I graduated from seminary, our rector Father Thomas Cassidy of the Sacred Heart priests was very clear to us in his conviction in what we needed to do in order to be true to our priesthood and to survive any crisis moments that we might have as priests. First, he said that we had to be tied to the word of God, to read and pray the word of God each day in the liturgy of the hours. Second, we need to have a strong love for the mass and for the Eucharist, to the Body and Blood of Christ we receive through the Eucharist. And third, we have to find ways to truly live out our lives of faith and our priesthood each day. All believers are also called to live out these ideals – to be tied to God’s Holy Word, to have a strong love for the Eucharist, and to find the ways that God is calling us to live out our faith.
In the apostolic exhortation he issued in March of this year, Gaudete et exsultate, Pope Francis wrote that the Jesus we meet in Scripture leads us to receive him in the Eucharist, where the Word of God achieves its greatest efficacy. The Pope states: “In the Eucharist, the one true God receives the greatest worship the world can give him, for it is Christ himself who is offered. When we receive him in Holy Communion, we renew our covenant with him and allow him to carry out more fully his work of transforming our lives.”
Indeed: As we receive the Holy Eucharist at mass today, let Christ’s presence really penetrate our hearts and our lives.
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