The Most Holy Body And Blood Of Christ – Solemnity 

Exodus 24:3-8
Psalm 115(116):12-13,15-18
Hebrews 9:11-15

O BREAD DIVINE! FEED US STILL

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. The Blessed Sacrament is forever rooted in the Lord’s Passion and Cross and the life of the Holy Mother Church. The Lord Jesus on the night he suffered instituted the Holy Eucharist and the ministry of Priesthood (Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:15-20).

His death took place to cancel the sins that infringed the earlier covenant (Heb. 9:15). The Apostles see the Eucharist as the mark of unity and the foundation of love that nurtures Christians into one family of Christ.

Thus, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist remains an active action of Christ through the Church in the world. The bread we see on the Altar after consecration is the Body of Christ – St. Augustine.

Today’s feast is a unique devotion; a sacramental celebration of the Paschal mystery. The feast began, we believe, as a local devotion in the French diocese of Liège. In the year 1264, Pope Urban IV extended it to the universal Church, and in the same year, at the Pope’s request, the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas himself, composed the liturgical texts that are used to this day on Corpus Christi.

Pope Urban’s idea was that the feast should express above all our joy in Christ’s abiding presence among us in the most Holy Sacrament. Added to that, St. Thomas Aquinas mentions that the Eucharist preserves a soul in the life of grace.

There was to be a distinctive note of triumph. Thus there grew up the custom of marking the day itself, Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and the following few days, not only with a particularly ornate celebration of Mass but also with an outdoor procession of the Host. The monstrance containing the sacred Host was carried in triumph under a canopy.

Flowers and candles were used in abundance, clouds of incense, music, even dancing; all the panoply that art and culture could devise, to express the Church’s conviction, the astonishing conviction, that in the consecrated Host, God the Son is truly present.

It is the Church’s faith in the Real Presence that we affirm on this feast of Corpus Christi. This cult of the Host is special and unique to the Catholic Church, and in particular, to the Latin rite of the Catholic Church.

Eastern rite Catholics certainly share our eucharistic faith, but not our eucharistic cult, not in quite the same way. “Non fecit taliter omni nationi”. He has not dealt thus with other nations. The public and unambiguous worship of the Blessed Sacrament is and should always be our pride and joy.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church No 1324 it says; the Eucharist is the source and summit of our Christian life. It means, therefore, that If blood is a sign of a biological relationship between people, it follows naturally that those who share Christ’s body and blood are also related to Him by flesh and blood.

Dear friends, the Blessed Sacrament exposed is our foretaste of heaven, where we shall gaze and gaze forever on the Lord. St. John Maria Vianney would often say that not going to communion is like someone thirsty beside the spring. We must long for Christ and abide in Him.

Concerning the Eucharistic celebration, Pope Benedict XVI says that “a celebration may be flawless on the exterior, very beautiful – but if it does not lead us to encounter Jesus Christ, it is unlikely to bear any kind of nourishment to our heart and our life.

Through the Eucharist, however, Christ wishes to enter into our life and permeate it with His grace, so that in every Christian community there may be coherence between liturgy and life.”

Is there anything making you not profess Jesus as your Lord and Saviour? Any there any sin or obstacle stopping you from receiving Jesus Christ in Holy Communion? Have you got quiet time in adoration to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament? Do you have time for God or Church activities?

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is the greatest proof of the greatest love that the Creator could ever show to His creatures: to dwell with them in self-imposed captivity, to be wholly at their disposal, to subject Himself totally to their every wish, to exist, it seems for no other purpose than to offer them His love, while at the same time waiting humbly for whatever meager devotion they might extend Him in return.

In all, We recall that God sanctified the body by entering the world through flesh and body. As we celebrate the Body of Christ, we also celebrate the dignity of our bodies, which are temples of the Holy Spirit. May Christ continue to make us members of his body. Amen.

Happy Solemnity

Fr Joseph Osho