CORPUS CHRISTI

Sunday 11 June 2023

Christ Episcopal Church, Woodbury, N.J.

 

 

At the heart of the Church’s life is the Good News that God became human so that he might reconcile humanity to himself. The Incarnation—the coming down of God from heaven to assume our human nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary—is a divine gift of amazing generosity and love.

         

In a well-known passage from his Letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul describes what he calls the self-emptying of the Son of God: “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” This self-emptying is the prerequisite to his glorification. “Therefore,” Paul writes—and that “therefore” is pivotal to the passage’s meaning—“Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

 

By extension, the incarnate, crucified, risen, and ascended Lord manifests this same self-emptying love when he gives himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood. He makes himself present and available in all times and places by means of the simple signs of bread and wine, the material elements of human nourishment and delight. 

 

So, we have a double movement of divine self-giving. Without in any way diminishing the infinite gulf separating the Creator from creation, God gives himself to us as a human being, Jesus of Nazareth, who in turn gives himself to us in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.

 

Every day, on hundreds of thousands of altars all over the world, he continues to give himself to us in this Sacrament just as he once gave himself to us by his conception in the Virgin’s womb, and indeed by his suffering and death on the cross. As the Dominican preacher Aidan Nichols puts it: Christ continues to pour himself out as the celebrant pours the wine into the chalice, and to distribute himself as his priests distribute the Host to innumerable disciples. We worship a God whose very nature is self-giving.

 

The feast of Corpus Christi proper fell this past Thursday. It comes every year exactly nine weeks after Maundy Thursday. Since 1969, however, the option has existed of transferring it to the following Sunday so that more people can join in the celebration, as is the custom here at Christ Church.

 

The feast dates to thirteenth century Flanders. The idea came from Juliana of Liège, a Norbertine canoness of considerable holiness. In her youth, Juliana had a vision of the moon partially eclipsed by a dark spot. As she reflected on the vision, she discerned that the moon represented the Church reflecting the light of Christ to the world. The shadow signified the absence of any feast in the Church calendar celebrating the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood besides the commemoration of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. Every year during Holy Week the Church recalls the Institution of the Eucharist, but always in the context of impending doom. The Maundy Thursday Mass is always celebrated at night, as was the original Last Supper as described in Saint John’s Gospel. There, night symbolizes the darkness of human sin that brings Jesus to the cross. When Judas Iscariot leaves to betray Jesus, he goes out into the night.

 

So, Juliana recognized the need for another Thursday on which to celebrate the gift of the Eucharist in the light of day—the daylight signifying the joy of Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost. Although Juliana kept her vision secret for some twenty years, when it finally came to the attention of her bishop, Robert of Liège, he ordered the celebration of the feast of Corpus Christi in his diocese on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday beginning in 1246. Eighteen years later, in 1264, Pope Urban IV instituted Corpus Christi as a feast for the entire Western Church.

 

The feast of Corpus Christi asks us to reflect on the place of Eucharistic adoration in our spiritual lives. One of the blessings of the liturgical renewal of the past fifty years or so in the Western Church has been a revived emphasis on receiving Communion as the normal practice of God’s people at every celebration of the Mass. In the Episcopal Church, the 1979 Prayer Book finally and definitively established the Holy Eucharist as the principal act of worship every Sunday and major holy day. Prior to that, many Episcopal parishes offered only Morning Prayer at the main service on most Sundays. So, the Liturgical Movement has brought us some definite gains.

 

The danger is that as we become habituated to receiving Holy Communion every Sunday and possibly once or more during the week as well, we may well be tempted to take such a wonderful gift for granted. It all too easily becomes a rote action, omitting the careful spiritual preparation that the Church recommends beforehand, and the loving thanksgiving so appropriate afterwards. In this context, the celebration of Corpus Christi refocuses our attention on Christ’s great gift of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, calling forth our gratitude, adoration, and awe.

 

So, as is the annual custom here at Christ Church, we begin another summer on a note of victory and triumph. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the risen and ascended Christ remains present with his people in the Blessed Sacrament. So, we admit to Holy Communion a class of young people who’ve undergone careful preparation. Nothing could be more appropriate on Corpus Christi Sunday. 

 

I’m also taking the liberty of concluding today’s celebration with a devotion known as Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, which is a traditional part of the Corpus Christi observances in many places. Once we’ve all received Holy Communion and returned to our places, I will place the consecrated host in the monstrance—which, as I understand it, has up to now been used here only on Maundy Thursday. So, we’ll have the opportunity to prolong our communing with Jesus in adoration of his sacramental presence on the Altar. 

 

The devotion culminates with the priest taking the monstrance and making the sign of the cross over the congregation to convey Christ’s blessing. It’s a wonderful devotion, which I wanted to introduce here as a parting gift before my leave-taking at the end of next month. So, as the antiphon at the beginning and end of the concluding psalm puts it: “Let us forever adore the most holy Sacrament.”