The Eucharist: Flesh and Blood
Is your parish celebrating this Solemnity with a Corpus Christi Procession? This traditional way of honoring the Eucharist goes back to the 1300’s, and is a beautiful public proclamation of our faith in Christ’s real presence in the Sacrament.
What exactly does our Faith teach about the Eucharist (which comes from the Greek word for “thanksgiving”)? From the very beginning, the Church has understood this Sacrament to be Christ Himself, as he clearly states in today’s Gospel: “My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” The earliest effort we know to explain this in writing came in the 2nd century, when St. Justin wrote that this bread and wine are truly the flesh and blood of Jesus: “For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise… the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”
Later, the explanation of this change was developed further. We now say that Christ is “really, truly, and substantially present” in the Eucharist. It is really His Presence, it has “real being,” not just mental existence. It is truly the Presence of Christ, not just a symbol or representation. And no matter what our senses tell us, we know that the substance is Christ, who is wholly present – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – in each element and every part of them. In every drop and every crumb, Christ is wholly present: really, truly, and substantially.
This is hard for us to fit into our skulls because it is a mystery. But God certainly must be more than we can understand - if God fit into the confines of our skulls, He would be very small indeed! God is Mystery, and the Gift of the Eucharist is a mystery. But a mystery is not an impossibly locked and sealed door! It is more like an endless series of doors that we continue to open and walk through and find delight in, but which we will never exhaust. There is always more to learn and rejoice in!
So today, let us give thanks and praise to God for all of His gifts, especially the Gift of Himself, remaining with us and nourishing our weary souls in the Eucharist.
As Pope St. John Paul II said, “This is the wonderful truth, my dear friends: the Word, which became flesh two thousand years ago, is present today in the Eucharist.”