Bishop Solis: Feast of Corpus Christi 'helps us to deepen our faith in God's infinite love'

Friday, Jun. 12, 2020

This Sunday, the Catholic Church all over the world celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi, or the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, which is considered the very center of our heart and culmination of our faith. The Church teaches that, “The Eucharist is the source and the summit of the Christian life. In the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself. It is also the culmination both of God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and the worship that men offer to Christ. In other words, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith.” (CCC1324-5). 

The great significance of the feast is our fundamental belief that the Body and Blood of Christ in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist is God’s gift of nourishment, unity and salvation for the world. Jesus instituted what St. Thomas Aquinas called the Greatest Sacrament in the context of a meal while he was eating the Passover meal with his apostles to commemorate their ancestors’ deliverance from Egyptian slavery. In that supper, after washing the feet of his disciples, he took bread, blessed it, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, “This is my body and this is my blood, broken and shared that we might live.” (1 Cor 11:23-26)

In John’s Gospel, Jesus said, “I am the living bread came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread…; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn 6:51). The wonderful gift of the Eucharist, then, is a sacramental banquet and a sacrificial offering of the true body and blood of Christ as food for our eternal life. 

As a sacrament, the Holy Eucharist is a visible sign and an excellent gift in and through which we personally meet Jesus, who willingly offers and shares his life with us as the food and drink of our very own salvation. In this manner, he gave his flesh and shed his blood in sacrifice as the true Paschal Lamb to save us from our sins and sustain us on our journey to eternal life. 

This is the great mystery of our faith. We believe in the miraculous transformation of the bread and wine into Christ’s risen body and blood in the celebration of the Mass, which is called transubstantiation. In the Gospel of Luke, Christ took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after supper, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Lk 22:19-20). So, Christ is truly present under the appearances of bread and wine, and through the action and consecratory words of the priest who acts in the person of Christ, these are substantially changed into Christ’s own body, blood, soul and divinity. 

Partaking of the body and blood of Christ is the source and fountain of our unity and communion. In the Gospel of John, Jesus states, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (Jn 6:56). Christ establishes the most intimate communion with us by sharing his flesh and blood. Every time we receive the Holy Communion in the Mass, he strengthens our unity with him and with other brothers and sisters with whom, as members of the Body of Christ, he already exists. 

Therefore, for us Catholics, the body and blood of Christ is the most precious and greatest gift of God’s love for us and the world. It is a clear manifestation of God’s fidelity to his promise that he will be with us until the end of time so that nothing can separate us from the love of God. On this Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, we are summoned to remember the greatest legacy of God’s love for us, to celebrate the mystery of our salvation and to believe that Christ remains with us forever, with his real and living presence in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. 

On Corpus Christi Sunday, let us join all the Catholic faithful in a worldwide adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. May this feast help us to deepen our faith in God’s infinite love for us so that every time we receive Christ’s body and blood, we maintain our loving union with our Savior. May it stir up our hearts so that we will marvel with awe, reverence and gratitude for God’s love in this precious gift of the Eucharist that we have been given, and so we will never become indifferent or take it for granted. May his grace empower us to become agents of unity in helping build the body of Christ, our Church. 

As we celebrate this great feast of our Catholic faith, let us worship Christ with the beautiful words of St. Thomas Aquinas: “O Sacrament most holy! O Sacrament Divine! All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine!” 

Corpus Christi wakes us. It is the source and summit of the Christian life. You and I have been gathered to Christ so that we can come together as the people of God, to worship God in thanksgiving, in praise and adoration, and to participate in the sacrifice of Christ, to receive his body and blood at the Lord’s banquet table. This is the center and source of our life as Christians, because the Eucharist is Christ, Our Lord and Our Savior, broken and given for all of us for the life of the world. This is our food for the journey – the bread come down from heaven to help us get to heaven.