Fr. Roger J. Landry
Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, Philadelphia
Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord
June 2, 2024
Ex 24:3-8, Ps 116, Heb 9:11-15, Mk 14:12-16.22-26
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
- My name is Father Roger Landry and I have the privilege to be accompanying the Lord Jesus and the pilgrims on the Seton Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage all 65 days of our journey from New Haven to Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress. The Pilgrimage and the Congress are both part of the three-year-plus National Eucharistic Revival that is taking place to renew the Church in our country by helping all of us grow in Eucharistic knowledge, faith, amazement, gratitude, love and life.
- It’s a great joy for all of us to have the chance to celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord here in this beautiful and historic Cathedral, to proclaim the word of God as two of my fellow pilgrims did earlier and then to have one of us preach and I cannot thank Archbishop Perez enough for his generosity in inviting us to do so.
- The essence of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi is given to us by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the liturgical sequence that immediately proceeded today’s Gospel. Lauda Sion Salvatorem — “Praise, O Zion, your Savior — lauda ducem et pastorem — “Praise your leader and shepherd” — in hymnis et canticis, “in hymns and songs.” We’re here fundamentally to praise and thank Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd. St. Thomas continues, Quantum potes, tantum aude — “dare to do all you can” — quia maior omni laude nec laudare sufficis — “because the mystery we celebrate is so much greater than all we can do and say.” We’re called to pull out all the stops, to push ourselves way beyond our comfort zones, because all our thanks will be far short of what the incredible self-gift of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist deserves. Quantum potes, tantum aude, literally “however much you can do, so dare to do,” ought to be the motto of Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the plan of the Eucharistic Revival, and the spirituality of every fully formed Catholic.
- Having the courage to do all we can is why after Mass today we will be taking Jesus out into the streets in a Eucharistic procession to St. Patrick’s Church.
- Having the boldness to do all possible was what defined your patrons, Saints Peter and Paul, who left everything to follow the Lord and continued to follow them to and through death into eternal life.
- Having the audacity to do all possible is what inspired the saintly fourth bishop of Philadelphia in 1853, the year after his arrival, to start 40 hour Eucharistic devotions in every parish of the-then Diocese.
- This bravery is what led Philadelphia native Saint Katherine Drexel, whose mortal remains are here in the Cathedral, to found the Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament to try to bring the Eucharistic Jesus and faith in him to blacks and Native Americans throughout the United States.
- This dauntlessness is what led the Church in Philadelphia to build the greatest Catholic school system in the history of the world, to pass on not just the “three r’s” of reading, writing, and arithmetic to generations of young people but also the r’s of recognition of the Real Presence, of reverence, of the root and center, source and summit of our faith, Jesus Christ himself, on the altar.
- This daring led the Church in Philadelphia likewise to step forward to host the 1976 international Eucharistic Congress so that, during the bicentennial of our nation’s founding documents signed here in Philadelphia, we might recognize our “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” will only find their fulfillment in our Eucharistic Lord, whose passion, death and resurrection set us free, who came to give us life to the full and who desires that his joy be in us and our joy complete.
- This boldness is also what led the U.S. bishops to propose the Eucharistic Revival in the first place and to plan a Eucharistic Congress for more than 50,000 people.
- It is also behind the choice of the young lay people behind me, together with priests and religious, united with similar groups starting from San Francisco, Brownsville, Texas, and northern Minnesota, to sign up for this Eucharistic adventure to accompany Jesus in the Holy Eucharist through cities and towns all across our country.
- Corpus Christi is a day on which God gives us the grace to make resolutions to dare to do not just something, but to do something big and beautiful, out of love for God who loved us so much that he didn’t just take on our humanity and enter our world, who didn’t just die for us on Calvary and rise so that with him we might conquer death, but who willed to remain with us always as our food so that he could strengthen and sanctify us on the inside, help us fulfill the mission he’s given us in this world and come to experience eternal joy with him forever.
- We see this boldness of the response to the gifts of God in today’s readings. In the first reading, in gratitude for the gift of salvation and the blessing of God’s helping the Israelites to learn how to worship him aright, the Lord’s chosen people “all answered with one voice, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has told us.’” In the Psalm, the inspired author asked, “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me?,” and he responded, “The cup of salvation I will raise and call on the name of the Lord.” Both of these have their fulfillment in the Gospel, when Jesus himself, on behalf of the human race, took up bread and the cup of salvation, thanked and praised God the father, totally changed them into himself — his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity — told us to take and eat, take and drink, and finally commanded us, “Do this in memory of me.” Today we respond, “We will do everything that the Lord has told us!” Today we make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for us and lift up the Lord’s Sacred Body and Precious Blood. Today we do this in memory of the Lord Jesus, conscious, as the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, that Christ the High Priest, while present here for us in the tabernacle and soon on the altar, has pierced the sanctuary in heaven and that his blood has the power not just to “cleanse our consciences from dead works” but to make it possible for us, as we heard, to “worship the living God” well and to “receive the promised eternal inheritance.”
- The greatest take away from the Solemnity of Corpus Christi is to help us recognize that by God’s gift, every day is meant to be a celebration of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus. When Jesus, exactly one year before the Last Supper, called us to labor for the food that endures to eternal life that he would give us and confirmed that he was that food, the true manna come down from heaven so that we might eat of him and never die, the people cried out, “Sir, give us this Bread always.” Likewise, when Jesus taught us to pray, he put on our lips the words, “Father, give us today our supersubstantial bread,” our epi-ousios Bread in Greek, which the Greek Fathers always knew referred not just to our material sustenance but to Jesus as the Living Bread come down from heaven. And in response to those two prayers, “give us this Bread always” and “give us today our supersubstantial Bread,” God the Father in fact does give us his Son every day as our heavenly manna to feed our souls, as the one to whom we can come to pray in person in the tabernacle and monstrance, as the one whom we can take out with faith and love into our streets so that he can encounter those for whom he died and call them anew, in a fresh way, to follow him to life, joy and a love that will know no end. In response to such a gift, the only worthy response is to dare to do all we can to praise, thank and love him in return.
- I’d like to return to St. Thomas Aquinas who gave us today’s sequence. At the same time that we are living this three-year-plus Eucharistic Revival, we are providentially marking a Thomistic triennium. Last July 18, we celebrated the 700th anniversary of his canonization; three months ago on March 7, when Archbishop Perez ordained three new auxiliary bishops, we marked the 750th anniversary of the Angelic Doctor’s death and birth into eternal life. Next January, we will mark the 800th anniversary of his birth. Therefore it’s all the more fitting, as this triennium coincides with the Revival, to sit upon St. Thomas’ sturdy shoulders to see more clearly how to respond to the supreme gift of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. The best was is through pondering the five Eucharistic hymns that he wrote for the first Corpus Christi 760 years ago and that the Church has been singing every Corpus Christi since. In the Lauda Sion Salvatorem sequence, St. Thomas gave us words that inspire our Eucharistic procession today, that motivate my fellow pilgrims’ and my 65-day Eucharistic pilgrimage, that are meant to animate the pilgrim Church on earth’s journey through time to the eternal Jerusalem. We pray, Ecce panis angelorum, factus cibus viatorum, vere panis filiorum: “Behold, the Bread of Angels has become the food of pilgrims, the true bread of the beloved sons and daughters of God.” The Eucharistic Jesus has indeed become our food, our viaticum, with us each day of our earthly journey. What an incredible gift! And that expression “Bread of angels” calls to mind another, far more famous hymn of St. Thomas for this feast, prayed by the Church this morning at the Office of Readings. We sang, Panis angelicus fit panis hominum. “The food of Angels has become the food of men.” And then Thomas has us exclaim with him, O Res Mirabilis, manducat Dominum, pauper et servus humilis! “O what a mind blowing reality, a poor and humble servant eats the Lord!” That’s what we have the privilege to do today. That’s what we have the awesome invitation to do every day along our terrestrial pilgrimage. St. Thomas finishes that hymn by having us pray, Per tuas semitas duc nos quo tendimus ad lucem quam inhabitas! “Following your footsteps, lead us to where you have inclined us to go, to the light where you dwell!” That’s what whole earthly pilgrimage is about, following Christ the Light into eternal life. That’s what our Eucharistic procession today is about. That’s what the whole four-part National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is meant to help the Church remember. And that’s the goal and the path of the Christian life, as we dare to do all we can.
- Blessed be Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar! Amen!
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
and related all the words and ordinances of the LORD,
they all answered with one voice,
“We will do everything that the LORD has told us.”
Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and,
rising early the next day,
he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar
and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then, having sent certain young men of the Israelites
to offer holocausts and sacrifice young bulls
as peace offerings to the LORD,
Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls;
the other half he splashed on the altar.
Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people,
who answered, “All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do.”
Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying,
“This is the blood of the covenant
that the LORD has made with you
in accordance with all these words of his.”
Responsorial Psalm
or:
R. Alleluia.
How shall I make a return to the LORD
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
R. I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Precious in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.
R. I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
My vows to the LORD I will pay
in the presence of all his people.
R. I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Reading 2
When Christ came as high priest
of the good things that have come to be,
passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle
not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,
he entered once for all into the sanctuary,
not with the blood of goats and calves
but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls
and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes
can sanctify those who are defiled
so that their flesh is cleansed,
how much more will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from dead works
to worship the living God.For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant:
since a death has taken place for deliverance
from transgressions under the first covenant,
those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
Sequence
Lauda Sion
Laud, O Zion, your salvation,
Laud with hymns of exultation,
Christ, your king and shepherd true:
Bring him all the praise you know,
He is more than you bestow.
Never can you reach his due.
Special theme for glad thanksgiving
Is the quick’ning and the living
Bread today before you set:
From his hands of old partaken,
As we know, by faith unshaken,
Where the Twelve at supper met.
Full and clear ring out your chanting,
Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,
From your heart let praises burst:
For today the feast is holden,
When the institution olden
Of that supper was rehearsed.
Here the new law’s new oblation,
By the new king’s revelation,
Ends the form of ancient rite:
Now the new the old effaces,
Truth away the shadow chases,
Light dispels the gloom of night.
What he did at supper seated,
Christ ordained to be repeated,
His memorial ne’er to cease:
And his rule for guidance taking,
Bread and wine we hallow, making
Thus our sacrifice of peace.
This the truth each Christian learns,
Bread into his flesh he turns,
To his precious blood the wine:
Sight has fail’d, nor thought conceives,
But a dauntless faith believes,
Resting on a pow’r divine.
Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things to sense forbidden;
Signs, not things are all we see:
Blood is poured and flesh is broken,
Yet in either wondrous token
Christ entire we know to be.
Whoso of this food partakes,
Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;
Christ is whole to all that taste:
Thousands are, as one, receivers,
One, as thousands of believers,
Eats of him who cannot waste.
Bad and good the feast are sharing,
Of what divers dooms preparing,
Endless death, or endless life.
Life to these, to those damnation,
See how like participation
Is with unlike issues rife.
When the sacrament is broken,
Doubt not, but believe ‘tis spoken,
That each sever’d outward token
doth the very whole contain.
Nought the precious gift divides,
Breaking but the sign betides
Jesus still the same abides,
still unbroken does remain.
The shorter form of the sequence begins here.
Lo! the angel’s food is given
To the pilgrim who has striven;
see the children’s bread from heaven,
which on dogs may not be spent.
Truth the ancient types fulfilling,
Isaac bound, a victim willing,
Paschal lamb, its lifeblood spilling,
manna to the fathers sent.
Very bread, good shepherd, tend us,
Jesu, of your love befriend us,
You refresh us, you defend us,
Your eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see.
You who all things can and know,
Who on earth such food bestow,
Grant us with your saints, though lowest,
Where the heav’nly feast you show,
Fellow heirs and guests to be. Amen. Alleluia.
Alleluia
I am the living bread that came down from heaven,
says the Lord;
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
Jesus’ disciples said to him,
“Where do you want us to go
and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
“Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water.
Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there.”
The disciples then went off, entered the city,
and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover.
While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
“Take it; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
“This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you,
I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.
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