This brings us to the magnificent Solemnity of Corpus Christi because it is the primordial sacrament of love. Away from the need to focus on the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, during the Sacred Triduum, the Church instituted this feast as a way for us to rejoice at the extraordinary gift of the Eucharist.
This Solemnity itself was set in the 13th century. Those who oppose the Church may point out that this “hocus pocus” was nothing more than a “Catholic” invention added to muddy the purity of the Faith. Yet it is fascinating that the early Church herself already possessed the profound sense of the Eucharist as Real Presence and not just symbolic representation. St Paul even though he did not use the language regarding the True Presence that we are familiar with already stated that consuming the bread and drinking the chalice were a participation in the Body and Blood of Christ. So much so that those who eat and drink unworthily of the Body and Blood of Christ, bring condemnation upon themselves.
The point here is that even though Pope Urban IV set this solemnity some time in AD1264, the centuries preceding his papacy were not silent. All throughout her history, the Church has always and constantly taught one way or another that the bread and wine used during the celebration of Mass are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. The Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor once responded to a suggestion that the Eucharist is just a symbol said, “If it is ONLY a symbol, to hell with it”. The reply reveals a seriousness about this Presence which is substantial, true and real for Catholics. Why?
Two things can be said. Firstly, it regards eternal life. Secondly, we need to consume and drink love to become whom we love.
A couple of Sundays’ ago, the case was made that Holy Communion is necessary in order to gain eternal life. This is premised on the experience of the Jews after Jesus had multiplied loaves and fish. He gave them enough to eat and they were searching for more of the same. The conversation proceeded to the point that Jesus made it an absolute requirement that eternal life is premised on eating His Body and drinking His Blood. He did not correct those who chose to walk away from Him. He did not run after them to explain that He was speaking figuratively and not literally.
Perhaps we might be familiar with St Jerome’s translation of the Pater Noster that allows us to grasp this hard saying of Jesus. We are used to “Give us this day our daily bread”. The word “daily” in its original Greek is “epiousios” which translated looks like “super-substantial” bread. Clearly a word that indicates that the Eucharist is more than just ordinary bread. In fact, “ousios” is exactly the Catechism’s formulation: this change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.
Every Sunday and at every Mass, a miracle happens. The bread and wine both retain their accidental appearance but their substances, bread and wine, are changed into the very substance of Christ’s Body and Blood. We are not receiving just bread and wine. As St Augustine remarked, “What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ, and the chalice is the blood of Christ”. And as St Francis of Assisi said, “O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! That the Lord of the whole universe, God and the Son of God, should humble Himself like this and hide under the form of a little bread, for our salvation”.
This brings us to the second note. We have been created by love to love. In order for us to grow ever more in love, we are fed with the sublime food of love. It was St Thomas Aquinas who said that “the Eucharist is the sacrament of love: it signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life”. Through the Sacraments, God dispenses grace but in the Eucharist, God gives Himself to us. Thus, for us to mature into the love of Christ, Jesus feeds us with Himself because He is love to the full, so that we can develop to become like Him.
The challenge is that we are often unloving. Or that we proclaim love but behave with hatred. Many a times, we despair because of the catastrophic failure to live up to our vocation. It is characteristic of a self-motivated generation to depend on personal strength. What happens when we desire to change but struggle mightily and fail? St John Bosco’s advice is a timely reminder that “we do not go to Holy Communion because we are good; we go to become good”. If we are not loving enough, it is more likely that we have not eaten enough of Holy Communion. Or we have placed obstacles for it to be effective. In this self-destructive behaviour, Satan happily lets us do it because we are good at it or he throws curved balls at us so that we can stumble and be discouraged. Many who despair and stay away from the Church, from the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist think that they are not worthy of God because of their sinfulness. It is a lame and a mistaken excuse. They are not aware that what they are stating is that basically God is not worthy of them. Think about it. My sin is so big that God will not forgive me. Is it more likely that God is not big enough to take away my sin? Or, God is not worthy of me.
More than anything, our spiritual renewal in this pilgrimage through life requires the Viaticum. Holy Communion is not the “last” Sacrament given before we die but it is really the food and provision for the journey. We are in the world but we are NOT of this world which is why to imitate Christ who came to sanctify the world, we need the Eucharist. Christ did not come to sanitise it, that is, to make life more bearable. Instead, sanctification is to infuse the world that has forgotten its creator. Through our words and actions enriched by the Eucharist, we make God in Jesus Christ more recognisable in our lives and for the world. For Him to be known and loved even more, we need the Eucharist more and not less. The sacrament that save is the very sacrament of love. St Teresa of Calcutta said this, “The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth”.
