Corpus Christi (Fr. Francis)
Astronaut Mike Hopkins is one of the selected few: he spent six months on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2013. And though he was thrilled when he was chosen for a space mission, there was one Person he didn’t want to leave behind: Jesus in the Eucharist. Hopkins had been received into the Church less than a year before his launch. After a long wait, he was finally able to receive Our Lord at each Mass. Facing the prospect of being off the planet for half a year, he decided he had to find out if Jesus could travel with him. It turns out he could — and he did. Hopkins says, “In 2011, I got assigned to a mission to the International Space Station. I was going to go up and spend six months in space, starting in 2013. So, I started asking the question, ’Is there any chance I can take the Eucharist up with me into space?’ The weekend before I left for Russia — we launch on a Russian rocket from Kazakhstan — I went to Mass one last time, and [the priest with permission from his bishop] consecrated the wafers into the Body of Christ, and I was able to take the pyx with me. NASA has been great. … They didn’t have any reservations about me taking the Eucharist up or to practicing my Faith in orbit. The Russians were amazing. I went in with all my personal items, and I explained what the pyx was and the meaning of it to me — because for them, they, of course, saw it just as bread, if you will, the wafers — and yet for me [I knew] it was the Body of Christ. And they completely understood and said, “Okay, we’ll estimate it weighs this much, and no problem. You can keep it with you.” All these doors opened up, and I was able to take the Eucharist up — and I was able to have Communion, basically, every week. There were a couple of times when I received Communion on, I’ll say, special occasions: I did two spacewalks; so, on the morning of both of those days, when I went out for the spacewalk, I had Communion. It was really helpful for me to know that Jesus was with me when I went out the hatch into the vacuum of space. And then I received my last Communion on my last day on orbit in the ‘Cupola, ’which is this large window that looks down at the Earth, and that was a very special moment before I came home.”
Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Sacred Body and Blood of Jesus which is given to us in the Most Holy Eucharist, is a profound, prophetic and powerful Feast in the liturgical year of the Catholic Church. Though this Feast has been transferred to Sunday in the United States, the Church in much of the world celebrated it on Thursday. Whenever it is celebrated, it is meant to be a richly significant day in Catholic Christian life.
On this day, through our readings at Holy Mass, the homily which is to be focused on the meaning of the Feast, and our active preparation and participation, we are reminded that Jesus Christ still gives Himself to us, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. He comes to live within us, and we live in Him through our Baptism into His Body, the Church.
The celebration of this Solemnity goes back to the thirteenth century. Pope Urban IV instituted it in 1264 for the entire Church. He wanted it to be filled with joy and accompanied by hymns and a festive procession.
He asked the great Church father, St. Thomas Aquinas, to compose two Offices of prayer. St Thomas did so- along with five hymns – and they have nourished the piety of Christians for centuries. In one of them St. Thomas noted:
Material food first of all turns itself into the person who eats it, and as a consequence, restores his losses and increases his vital energies. Spiritual food, on the other hand, turns the person who eats it into itself. Thus, the proper effect of this sacrament is the conversion of man into Christ, so that he may no longer live for himself, but that Christ may live in Him. And as a consequence it has the double effect of restoring the spiritual losses caused by sins and defects and of increasing the power of the virtues.
On this Feast we proclaim our belief in the Real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. We also proclaim that same Jesus lives within each one of us who are baptized into His Body, the Church, of which we are members. That is also a Real presence. The Lord Himself teaches us that the entire Trinity takes up residence within us. (John 14:23) Then, through our life in the Church, which is His Body, and our participation in the Sacraments, which communicate Divine Life, we can begin to live in the Trinity, right now.
This is the theological mystery we call communion. It is a huge word, with multiple implications. It is one reason why we call the reception of the Eucharist, Holy Communion. The Christian faith and life is about relationship, with the Father, in and through His Son Jesus through the Holy Spirit. And, in Jesus Christ, with one another, for the sake of the world. The world into which we process is the world that God still loves so much that He continues to send His Son – to save, recreate and transform it from within. The Corpus Christi procession symbolizes the ongoing redemptive mission of Jesus Christ – and our participation in it.
He comes to dwell within us – and we live our lives now in Him. We are invited to become a living monstrance, carrying the Lord within us; living manifestations, of the Lord, showing Him forth to the world, in word and deed. We are invited to enthrone the Lord in our hearts, which is, in biblical language, the moral center of the person. In the Holy Eucharist we receive the Divine Host, Jesus the Christ. Through our Baptism, Jesus Christ has taken up residence within each one of us. We carry Him into the real world just as we carry the monstrance into its streets today. When we process – we proclaim by symbolic action that the Lord continues to come into the world, through the Church.
Jesus told his disciples, Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. We who have been given the bread of angels truly do have His Life within us; the very life of the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit – a communion of Divine Persons in the Perfect unity of Perfect love. The Feast of Corpus Christi follows the great Feast of the Holy Trinity in the Catholic Church calendar in order to show us this profound connection every year. Through our continual reception of the Eucharist we are invited to live more fully in the Trinitarian communion- and we are given the grace to do so!
Then we are sent into the world to carry Jesus to others. The Lord wants all men and women to live within the Church. She is the home of the whole human race and a seed of the kingdom. The implications of that invitation are meant to unfold into a life of continual conversion in every believer. This conversion happens in and through the very real stuff, the struggles and travail of our daily lives; through even the mistakes, the wrong choices, the failures, and the pain, when they are joined to His Passion in our lives of joyful penitence.
Through it all, the love of God purifies and refines us like the refiners’ fire purified the gold that was used to make the many Monstrances we carry into the Streets of the world on this great and glorious Feast of Corpus Christi. Like Mary, the Mother of the Lord – and the mother of all who follow her Son – we are invited to give our own Fiat, our Yes to the God of love. We enthrone Him in our hearts. She carried him in her womb.
This Feast reminds all of us of the call to continuing conversion, the universal call to holiness. Each of us who bear the name Christian is to become more like the One whom we love and in whom we live. As we march the Monstrance into the cities of the whole world we participate in a profoundly prophetic act. The early Eastern Church Fathers referred to the Church as the “world transfigured” and the “world reconciled.” That reconciliation and transfiguration continues through the Church. Jesus has been raised from the dead and he walks into the world, through His Body, of which we are members. (1 Corinthians 12,13)
St. Paul, in his letter to the Christians in Philippi, reminds us our true citizenship is in heaven. While we live in this current age we participate in bringing heaven to earth and earth to heaven. Christians live in the Church and go into the world. Our mission is to bring this world back to God in and through Jesus Christ.
We have received the Bread of Heaven. Let us choose to become what we consume. These Feasts are not just rituals on a Church calendar. They are invitations to encounter the Lord Jesus Christ, and then offer Him to a world waiting to be born anew. On this Feast of Corpus Christi, let us ask the Lord to come and take up residence within us anew. Let us receive, adore and become Eucharist for others.
O Sacrament most Holy, o Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine! O Christ, the Bread of Life, given freely as real Food for our salvation, Your Most Holy Body and Blood, flowing down from the Cross in atonement for our sins, have mercy on us sinners, and by our worthy partaking in this most Sacred Communion, unite us all as the One Body of Christ, the Church, and lead us all into eternal life. Amen.
Thank you, Lord, for your incredible love, manifested in the Eucharist; Thank you for the gift of your life, renewed in each communion; Thank you, Lord, for the hope of eternal life, confirmed in every encounter with you. May the sanctifying Spirit make us one with you to form a single body with all the brothers and sisters. Amen.
Fr. A. Francis HGN