Learning from St. Thomas Aquinas How to Celebrate Corpus Christi, June 3, 2018

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx
Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Year B
June 2, 2018
Exod 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: 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

A feast desired by the Lord and by us

Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Eucharist. The Lord wanted a special day for us to celebrate his giving of himself to us each day and he asked for it in two different stages in the 1200s. He obviously desired that our faith in the Eucharist would pass from our head, to our heart to our knees, that our response to him in this gift would go from theology to devotion, that this day would help us to grow from knowledge of his real presence to passionate love. 800 years ago, people knew the truth of Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist intellectually but for many it really didn’t impact their life. They didn’t celebrate the Eucharist, both in terms of the fact that they didn’t rejoice in the Mass, but also they didn’t rejoice in the gift of Jesus in their life. The Eucharist was one of the seven sacraments and attending Mass was one of the precepts of the Church based on the third commandment. So even among those who were faithful, Mass was a duty. But it wasn’t a thing of love. Jesus wanted us to love him back in the Eucharist. He did this not because he’s hurting for attention, or narcissistic, but precisely because he loves us. He wants us to receive as much as we possibly can from the gift of himself in the Eucharist, not for his sake, but for ours.

The first intervention of Jesus in asking for this Feast occurred in the early part of the century, when the Lord Jesus began to appear to a contemplative nun in Belgium, St. Juliana of Mont Cornillon (1193-1258). Beginning from the time she was 15 in 1208, a moon would appear to her throughout the day with a black band in it. She wondered what it meant and the Lord Jesus appeared to her in a dream and mentioned that the moon referred to the liturgical year and the black band to the fact that the liturgical year lacked one thing, a day in honor of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. Up until that point, the Church had marked the institution of the Eucharist each year on Holy Thursday, when the Lord gave the Apostles His Body and Blood for the first time and instituted the priesthood so that through His priests, that Body and Blood might be multiplied to every land in every age. But on Holy Thursday, the focus of Christians is divided. Yes, we think about the Eucharist, but we also ponder the imminent betrayal that will occur after the Last Supper. Even the Gospel of the Mass of the Last Supper does not focus on the Eucharist, but rather on the Lord’s washing His Apostles’ feet and commissioning them to do the same in loving, humble service of others. Jesus was saying that missing from the liturgical calendar was a feast specifically dedicated to rejoicing in the incredible gift of the Eucharist and thanking God for it. After 20 years of these apparitions, Saint Juliana went to the local bishop, Bishop Robert de Thorete of Liège, and asked him to institute a feast in their diocese in Belgium, which he did beginning in 1246. The Archdeacon of the Bishop of Liège, who presented her to the bishop and was his point man in working out all the details for the feast, was someone named Jacques Pantaleon. Seven years later he was ordained a priest and consecrated Bishop of Verdun. Two years later, during the age of the crusades, he was named Patriarch of Jerusalem. And in 1261, he was elected Pope Urban IV and would be intimately involved in the second part of the Lord’s manifestation of his desire for a universal feast dedicated to his Body and Blood.

That second began with a Czech priest, Father Peter of Prague, who had lost his faith in the reality of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist. We have to confront the fact that priests can lose their faith in the Eucharist. Priests can start to take for granted that what starts out as mere bread and wine in theirs hands totally changes, after a few words, into the Body and Blood of the God-man, Jesus, even though all the appearances of the bread and wine remain.Father Peter began to feel like a hypocrite celebrating the Eucharist while having some doubts about whether the Lord Jesus was truly there. But he hadn’t yet lost his faith in God and, hence, decided to give God the opportunity to give him that faith by doing something quite drastic. In 1263, he decided to make a pilgrimage to Rome, to pray at the tomb of his patron, St. Peter, for the gift of renewed faith in the Eucharist. This was a drastic move, because to make a pilgrimage to Rome was quite an undertaking then. Today we can hop on a plane at JFK airport and arrive in Rome eight hours later. To make a pilgrimage from Prague to Rome in 1263, however, would have meant walking 851 miles, like walking from New York City to Jacksonville (834) or St. Louis (874). At twenty miles a day, it would have taken a month and a half, one way. Despite the hardship and sacrifice, however, Peter went, desperate to save his priesthood and save his faith.

Why did he make the pilgrimage to St. Peter in Rome? There were tombs of saints and pilgrimage destinations much closer to Prague, but Father Peter did not choose any of them. He went to the tomb of his patron because St. Peter has always been an example to the whole Church of faith in the Eucharist. We remember what happened at the end of the famous Gospel when Jesus was in the Synagogue of Capernaum talked about the reality of the Eucharist for the first time. He told his listeners that unless they ate His flesh and drank His blood, they would have no life in them, and the one who ate His flesh and drank His blood would have eternal life. St. John tells us that many of the disciples, those for whom the Lord had worked so hard for the previous two years to bring to the truth, walked away, thinking that Jesus was mentally ill, teaching them the necessity of cannibalism. They complained, saying, “This teaching is hard! Who can accept it?” Jesus then turned to His closest followers, the Twelve, and asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?” None of them could have understood what Jesus was talking about any better than those who had just abandoned Jesus. It would take a year before what Jesus was saying would make any sense, when Jesus, during the Last Supper, as in the Gospel we just heard, took bread and wine into His hands and changed them into His body and blood, saying. “This is my body”; “This is the chalice of my blood.” Nevertheless, even though they didn’t understand truly what Jesus was saying and why He was saying it, St. Peter stood up after the Lord asked whether they, too, would leave Him over His teaching on the Eucharist, and said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God.”That’s the reason why Father Peter of Prague made the pilgrimage to Rome, to ask for faith in Christ’s words just like his St. Peter had.

He finally arrived after a long and lengthy journey. He prayed for a few weeks in front of the tomb of his patron, but after all of that, it seemed as if nothing had happened. Thus Fr. Peter started to question his entire faith in God. Hadn’t Jesus said that whoever knocked would have the door opened, whoever asked would receive, whoever sought would find? Hadn’t He said that the Father knows how to give good things to His children? Yet when Father Peter, a priest, had asked for something so important for him to be a good disciple and apostle of the Lord — faith in the Lord’s presence in the Eucharist — it seemed like he had come up empty. So, crestfallen, he began his journey north, now with very little faith at all.He was traveling in a group of returning pilgrims, because there was safety in numbers in warding off bandits who would wait in hiding to ambush individual travelers. When it came to be Sunday, members of the group asked Fr. Peter if he might celebrate Mass for them. More out of courtesy than faith, he assented. They stopped at a small church dedicated to St. Christina in Bolsena, Italy, and celebrated Mass on a side altar. Right before the “Lamb of God,” when Father Peter broke the host, as a priest always does to put a particle into the chalice, the host in his hands began to bleed over his hands and on the corporal. The people, beholding the miracle in front of their eyes, started to shriek. The priest of St. Christina’s came to see what all the commotion was about and beheld the miracle with his own eyes. They had to decide what to do with the miracle. The local priest knew that Pope Urban IV was at that time in Orvieto, the well-fortified papal city only about 10 miles uphill from where they were, and so they went to inform the Pope of the miracle and the Pope sent the local bishop to investigate the Blood Stained Corporal. Eventually the Corporal was brought to Orvieto in a caravan of all those who had witnessed the miracle. We can imagine Fr. Peter’s telling Pope Urban IV his story, about how he had lost his faith in the Eucharist, made a pilgrimage to Rome, thought that the Lord hadn’t heard his prayer, but then He had made His real presence incontrovertibly present during the celebration of the Mass in Bolsena. Father Peter would have punctuated the truth of the Lord’s presence in the Eucharist by saying something like, “Holy Father, bread can’t bleed.” Urban IV, the former archdeacon of Liège, Jacques Pantaleon, took that miracle as a sign that Christ wanted a feast to His Body and Blood celebrated not just in his home diocese in Belgium, but throughout the whole Church. He wanted the routine Eucharistic miracle that was the basis of the extraordinary Eucharistic miracle to be celebrated.The first one was celebrated in 1264 and it has been celebrated ever since. The Lord appeared to St. Juliana of Liege and then worked the miracle in Fr. Peter’s hands so that we and the whole Church might fittingly celebrate His Body and Blood to this day, in our own parishes, throughout the world.

Entering into the heart and mind of St. Thomas Aquinas

For that first celebration of Corpus Christi, Pope Urban turned to the greatest teacher of the Catholic faith after Jesus, the Dominican St. Thomas Aquinas, to write the liturgy. St. Thomas was living in Orvieto at the time. He wrote the Collect (opening prayer) we said at the beginning of Mass today. He wrote five hymns for this feast day: the Lauda Sion Salvatorem we sang before today’s Gospel; the Panis Angelicas that we’ll sing later at Mass (part ofthe hymn for the Office of Readings Sacris Solemnis); the O Salutaris Hostia we sing when we expose the Blessed Sacrament (part of the chant for Morning Prayer, Verbum Supernum Prodiens); the Tantum Ergo Sacramentum we sing at Benediction (part of the canticle for Vespers, Pange Lingua Gloriosi); and the beautiful hymn for Eucharistic adoration Adoro Te Devote. St. John Paul II called St. Thomas an “impassioned poet of Christ in the Eucharist” and Pope Benedict XVI said he had an “exquisitely Eucharistic soul” that produced the “most beautiful hymns that the Liturgy of the Church sings.” We can ponder St. Thomas’ five great hymns written for this Feast that have been nourishing the Eucharistic faith and love of Catholics for the last three-quarters of a millennium. I’d like to share with you five thoughts culled from these Eucharistic hymns that can help us to celebrate this Feast — and the Eucharistic reality underlying it — well.

Holding nothing back

The first thought concerns St. Thomas’ encouragement for us to go “all out” in praising the Eucharistic Lord today and beyond. In the Sequence we sang today, St. Thomas said, “Quantum potes, tantum aude, quia maior omni laude nec laudare sufficis.” “Dare to do all you can, because all the praise you give won’t equal all the praise Jesus deserves.” This is the essence of Corpus Christi, that we ought to be extravagant in our response to Jesus’ extravagant gift. Like Mary of Bethany who “wasted” 300 days wages worth of genuine aromatic spikenard anointing Jesus’ feet, we’re called lavishly to give of ourselves to the Lord in gratitude. Quantum potes— however much you can — tantum aude, so much dare to do. St. Thomas’ words aren’t supposed to expire at the stroke of midnight at the end of Corpus Christi, but to last, to lead to a truly Eucharistic life. In response to this, young men give up families of their own, lucrative careers, even their own autonomy in order to be able to bring this gift to the world as priests. In response to this, young women dedicate their entire life to adoring him in religious and consecrated life. In response to this many lay faithful make a commitment to come to be with him every week, several in the middle of the night, in Eucharistic adoration, and others make the commitment to receive him every day, because what could really be more important on a Monday, or a Thursday than receiving Jesus inside at daily Mass. What about you? How much can you give? Today the whole Church is daring us to give that much, to give to our absolute limit, to get out of our comfort zone and give Jesus something worthy of his humility in allowing us to enter into his life this way.

Increased Faith

The second thought involves St. Thomas’ recognition that to dare to give all we can we need an increase in faith. Fr. Peter of Prague had lost his faith. Many people have lost their faith. I cannot believe that if Catholics really believed that the Eucharist was Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ was God they wouldn’t be here with us at Mass today. But many use Sunday to sleep, or work, or clean their house, or play sports, or watch TV rather than come to Church, because they’ve lost the Eucharistic faith they once had. If Taylor Swift or Aaron Judge were to visit 145th Street today, the whole place would be packed. If people recognized Jesus Christ is here, I think it would be even more packed. But many just don’t realize or don’t believe deeply enough. We need to be somewhat sympathetic. After all, the Eucharist is hard to believe! We believe that after the words of consecration, what seems to our senses to remain just simple unleavened bread and wine really becomes the Son of God and Savior of the world. That’s why St. Thomas in all his Eucharistic hymns for this day had us pray for an increase in Eucharistic faith. In his Adoro Te Devote, he sang, “Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, Sed auditu solo tuto creditur. Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; Nil hoc verbo veritátis verius. “Having seen, touched and tasted, we’re deceived about you. It’s only by hearing that we can believe. I believe whatever the Son of God has said because nothing is truer than the Word of Truth.” These words come from St. Thomas’ reflections on Jesus’ words that his flesh is true food and his blood true drink and that we have to gnaw on his flesh and drink his blood to have life in us. We believe what he says because we believe in Him, who is the Truth incarnate, as St. Peter’s response to Jesus indicates. Later in that hymn, we sing,  “Fac me tibi semper magis credere,” “Make me always believe in you more and more.” In the Tantum Ergo, we cry out “Praestet fides supplementum sensuum defectui,” May faith supplement what my senses fail to grasp.” Today is a day in which we ask the Lord to strengthen our faith and strengthen the faith of all Catholics.

Awe

The third insight involves the need for wonder. In the Panis Angelicus, we sing, “O res mirabilis, manducat Dominum, pauper, servus et humilis.” “O what a mind-blowing reality, a poor and humble servant eats the Lord!” It’s almost incomprehensible that the Creator and the Redeemer of the world would remain with us sacramentally present until the end of time, but he wants us, with all of weaknesses and frailties, in our poverty and humility, to consume him, so that we might become what we eat. It’s very important for us on Corpus Christi and beyond to spend time praying about this “wondrous reality” (res mirabilis). John Paul II had stressed the need for Eucharistic amazement. He said the Church’s response to the Eucharist “has its source in the amazement with which the Church contemplates this great Mystery. It is an amazement that I myself constantly experience.” Then he said that as he was approaching his 27^thyear as Pope, which would be his last, “I consider it a great grace to be able to call the whole Church to contemplate, praise and adore in a special way this ineffable Sacrament, … the incomparable treasure that Christ has entrusted to the Church.” This is the wonder that can lead us to dare to do all that we can in response to this great gift. Many of us, however, don’t spend enough time pondering this gift. Many of us put more faith in Tylenol than in the Eucharist. When we receive a Tylenol, we actually expect something to happen, for our paint to away, for there to be relief and healing. But when many of us receive Holy Communion, we expect next to nothing to happen. We treat it as just as ritual. We don’t realize that it’s we, poor and humble servants, eating God, consuming what St. Ignatius of Antioch in the year 107 called the “medicine of immortality.” This feast of Corpus Christi is an opportunity for all of us to rediscover this Eucharistic amazement.

Letting the Light burst forth

The fourth reality St. Thomas describes is about our need to let the Holy Eucharist impact our life. In his Sacris Solemnis, from which we get the famous final two verses of Panis Angelicus, we pray, “Per tuas semitas, duc nos quo tendimus, ad lucem quam inhabitas.” This is not just a prayer for eternal light but to follow in the Lord’s self-giving footsteps here on earth. This is something that your Statutes affirm. “To make our lives a true sacrifice of love, we will consciously and actively enter into the spirit of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and offer ourselves with Christ to be broken and given to the poorest of the poor, first and foremost to those in our own religious community so that they may have life and may have it in abundance.” Saint Mother Teresa commented that the result in us of Holy Communion should be similar to what happened in the life of the Blessed Virgin after the Annunciation. “When communicating with Christ in your heart — the partaking of living Bread — remember what Our Lady must have felt when the Spirit overpowered her and she, who was full of grace, became full with the body of Jesus. The Spirit in her was so strong that immediately she rose in haste to go and serve. Each Holy Communion — each breaking of the Bread of Life — each sharing, should produce in us the same, for it is the same Jesus who came to Mary and was made flesh who comes to us and becomes our life. We too, like her, should be in haste to give this life of Jesus to our brothers and the poor.”

Foretaste of Forever

The last insight from St. Thomas we’ll ponder is the connection between the Eucharist and heaven, how the way we prepare to receive Jesus here on earth is the way we prepare for heaven. St. Thomas always finishes the last verses of his hymns with a reference to the connection between the Eucharist and heaven. Jesus, of course, makes the same connection: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day.” The best way for us to prepare for eternal life is to seek to live off of Jesus here in this life, to draw our life from him in the Eucharist. At the end of today’s Sequence, we prayed with St. Thomas, “You who know all things and wish us every good thing who shepherds us mortals here below: make us there (in heaven) your fellow banqueters, co-heirs and companions of the city of the saints!” Jesus wants to lead us step-by-step to the place that he has made us to tend and desire. He wants to lead us to the place where he dwells in light with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the place where his Mother and all the saints are, the place where we hope to be his companions at table, heirs of his victory, his friends and fellow citizens of the saints.

How Blessed We Are

Today, on this celebration of the feast of Corpus Christi, we come and seek to respond to his grace to dare to do all we can, to be filled with wonder, to receive an increase of faith, to examine our consciences, and to follow him more and more deeply along the path of light and life into a holy communion that is nourished here at Mass, extends throughout the whole of life and is meant to lead us to that communion with God and with the saints that will know no end. “Blessed are those who are called to the Supper of the Lamb!” Blessed indeed are we to be here. May we all respond to God’s help so that this celebration of Corpus Christi will lead us to its fulfillment in the heavenly liturgy.

The readings for today’s Mass were: