This is one of two feasts celebrating particular doctrines (the Most Holy Trinity is the other one).
We thank you, our Father, for the life and knowledge which you have made known to us through Jesus your Servant; to you be the glory forever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever.
The Didache
Last week was the transcendent reality of one God three persons. This week we get the very comforting reality that God’s presence is mediated through simple bread and wine in the context of a community meal. Today we’re looking at the God who nourishes us.
This feast originated from visions received by Juliana of Liège, a Belgian saint in the 12th century. In her visions, God laments that there is no feast to celebrate the Body and Blood of Christ. It was incorporated into the liturgical calendar in the late 13th century.
Initially, it was primarily a processional feast where the Eucharist was carried around town and venerated. It’s important to know that it was an era where most people did not have access to the Eucharist and this was the only way they could come anywhere near it. At that time, people were content to simply gaze at the consecrated host.
Lumen Gentium calls the Eucharistic celebration “the source and summit of the whole Christian life” (no. 11). Many people today would point solely to the Eucharistic host and that is why the practice of Adoration is seeing such a resurgence. It’s important to note, though, that the Vatican II reference is in the context of the entire Mass. The whole celebration, including the community that celebrates it, is our source and summit, not just the host.
Another Vatican II document, Dei Verbum, which talks about Scripture, puts the Bible on equal par with the Eucharist by saying that the Church “unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s word and of Christ’s body” (no. 21).
Prior to Vatican 2 the feast was called Corpus Christi and the emphasis was on devotion to the Blessed Sacrament reserved in a tabernacle and presented for adoration. Now it’s called the Feast of the Body and the Blood and the emphasis is intended to be on the communal celebration of the Eucharist. The feast reminds us that it’s not enough to simply gaze on something, no matter how lovingly. We are called to become that something and we do that in the context of community.
“The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”
Pope Francis in the Joy of the Gospel
[The] Eucharist fulfills the Covenant, which sanctifies us, purifies us and unites us in worthy communion with God. Thus we learn that the Eucharist is not a prize for the good, but is strength for the weak, for sinners. It is forgiveness, it is the Viaticum that helps us to move forward, to walk.
Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Pope Francis, 2015
All of us who take part in the Eucharist are called to discover, through this sacrament, the profound meaning of our actions in the world in favor of development and peace; and to receive from it the strength to commit ourselves ever more generously, following the example of Christ, who in this sacrament lays down his life for his friends (cf. Jn 15:13). Our personal commitment, like Christ’s and in union with his, will not be in vain but certainly fruitful.
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis: The social concern of the Church, Pope John Paul II, 1987