Sunday Meditation: The Mystery of Christ’s Body and Blood

Last week we celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.  This week we follow it up with the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, otherwise known as the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.  This feast was inspired by a Norbertine canoness who was later canonized as St. Juliana of Liège.  She had visions of Eucharistic adoration and was able to convince her local bishops to institute a local feast on the Body and Blood of Christ.  One of those bishops would eventually become Pope Urban IV.  In 1264 Pope Urban instituted the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ as a universal feast for the Church.  He asked Thomas Aquinas to compose the liturgical prayers for the new feast.  In addition to the prayers, Aquinas composed some of the most beautiful hymns on the Eucharist that we sing even today.  That’s the short version of how the feast came about.  If you want to read the entire history from St. Juliana to Pope Urban to St. Thomas Aquinas, this article at The Pillar is the most comprehensive.  

For the Gospel on this feast in Year C, we read from St. Luke’s version of the feeding of the five thousand. 

 

Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God,

and he healed those who needed to be cured.

As the day was drawing to a close,

the Twelve approached him and said,

"Dismiss the crowd

so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms

and find lodging and provisions;

for we are in a deserted place here."

He said to them, "Give them some food yourselves."

They replied, "Five loaves and two fish are all we have,

unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people."

Now the men there numbered about five thousand.

Then he said to his disciples,

"Have them sit down in groups of about fifty."

They did so and made them all sit down.

Then taking the five loaves and the two fish,

and looking up to heaven,

he said the blessing over them, broke them,

and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.

They all ate and were satisfied.

And when the leftover fragments were picked up,

they filled twelve wicker baskets.

   ~Lk 9:11-17

 

Fr. Geoffrey Plant provides a thorough understanding of the Solemnity’s significance. 

 

So the key takeaway is that Christ’s exhorting us to “remembrance” of His institution of the Eucharist is not just a recall to memory.  It is the making present of a past event, which in this case is the Last Supper’s institution of the Eucharist, the sacrifice at Calvary, and the Resurrection of our Lord.

The pastoral homily comes from Fr. Patrick Briscoe O.P. from Our Sunday Visitor. 

 

Are you satisfied when you receive the Body and Blood? 

 

Sunday Meditation: They all ate and were satisfied.

 

For the hymn, it is tradition to sing the Corpus Christ Sequence between the second reading and the Gospel.  Here in the original Latin composed by St. Thomas Aquinas.  

 

Here are the first few stanzas.

 

Lauda Sion Salvatórem

Lauda ducem et pastórem

In hymnis et cánticis.

 

Quantum potes, tantum aude:

Quia major omni laude,

Nec laudáre súfficis.

 

Laudis thema speciális,

Panis vivus et vitális,

Hódie propónitur.

 

Quem in sacræ mensa cœnæ,

Turbæ fratrum duodénæ

Datum non ambígitur.

You can find all the lyrics with their translation at the Wikipedia entry I linked above.

If you wish to hear it in English, this chant is well done.