Corpus Christi and the Real Presence

Thursday marked the traditional date for the Feast of Corpus Christi, although most provinces, including in the United States, will celebrate it tomorrow. This feast was instituted to expand on Holy Thursday, which celebrates the institution of the Eucharist but also marks the institution of the priesthood and the beginning of the Triduum commemorating Our Lord’s Passion. Thus, the Holy Eucharist, which is the source and summit of our Christian life, was given its own feast to highlight its importance and provide for adoration of this great Sacrament. When we receive the Holy Eucharist, we are being made partakers in Jesus’s divine life and given to know just how much He loves us to give us Himself in order to remain with us even as He ascended into heaven. We are also expressing our belief in the Eucharist as Jesus’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Sadly though, not many people, even among Catholics, believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. The Pew Research Center released a study in 2019 that found that 69% of Catholics believe that the Eucharist is only a symbol. This is a very tragic belief for those in the Church to hold, particularly considering Jesus’s words “This IS My Body, This IS My Blood” (Luke 22:19-20). The Feast of Corpus Christi is meant to be a reminder of what we believe about the Eucharist and why we believe it, and show us how much Our Savior loved us to give us His very self.

In what is known as the Bread of Life discourse in John chapter 6, Jesus says to the Jews in the presence of His disciples, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you shall not have life within you...For My Flesh is true food and My Blood is true drink” (John 6:53,55). This is a strong claim to make if you only mean for future Eucharistic celebrations to be a symbol. And when some of His disciples walk away and decide to no longer follow Him (v. 66), Jesus doesn’t explain away His statements to call them back by claiming He only means for it to be symbolic. No, He is serious about this. In order to truly have life within us and inherit eternal life, we must consume His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in actuality, not symbolically. This reception is meant to change us interiorly and we are to become, however gradually, like Jesus by this union with Him. Furthermore, symbolic uses of bread and wine for the Mass could have been thought of and instituted after Jesus’s Ascension by the apostles. But Jesus instituted this great Sacrament with His own Hand at the Last Supper to highlight the reality of the bread and wine being His own Body and Blood. He gave Himself with His own Hand as a precursor to His Passion and Death and as an opportunity for us to enter into it at every Mass.

The Old Testament also gives us an insight into the fact that the Eucharist is truly Jesus and not just a symbol. In the Book of Exodus, God tells Moses and Aaron to tell the Israelites to procure lambs for their households and slaughter them, spreading the blood on their doorposts and then eating the meat of the lambs. When He sees the blood on the doorposts of the Israelites, He will pass over the house and spare their firstborns (Exodus 12:1-13). The blood of the lamb is a foreshadowing of the Blood of Jesus Christ which will be poured out on the cross for the salvation of the world. The fact that God also instructs Moses and Aaron that the lamb must also be eaten and gives instructions on how it is to be eaten means that this part is also important for the Israelites to obey in order to be saved. Likewise, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, must also be eaten by Christians for their salvation. Not symbolically, but actually eaten. As Jesus Himself said, if this is not done, “you shall not have life within you” (John 6:53).

The Feast of Corpus Christi gives us an opportunity to dwell on this reality of the Real Presence and the actions we take on this day point to this reality. It is traditional to have a procession with the Blessed Sacrament after Mass on this feast, accompanied by incense and with the priest and monstrance covered by a canopy called a baldacchino to highlight the sacredness of Who we are processing with. It is Jesus Himself, our God really and truly present in that monstrance and that is why we should kneel and stop what we are doing if we encounter a Corpus Christi procession, even if we’re not part of it. If those who do believe in the Real Presence start to really put their belief on display and treat the Blessed Sacrament with the reverence and adoration that He deserves, we will slowly but surely begin drawing in the people, Catholic and non-Catholic, who do not believe in this doctrine and start making them think about what they do believe and why we believe differently.

The Eucharist shows us how much God loves us and it wouldn’t have been much proof if He had just given us symbols. St. Teresa of Calcutta once said that for love to be real, it has to cost us and it has to hurt. Giving us His very self, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity shows that Jesus went to a place where His love for us cost Him and it hurt, especially when He suffered and died for us. This Corpus Christi, let’s go to Mass with full knowledge of what we’re celebrating and why, and with true gratitude and love for Christ in our hearts.

O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine!