Corpus Christi (Midweek Message)

 

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Corpus Christi

June 19, 2014

Today is the Thursday after Trinity Sunday.  In the Calendar of the Church of England, it is the Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion, commonly called Corpus Christi, (Body of Christ in Latin).  The feast is widely celebrated in many Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.  It honors Christ’s institution of the Sacrament of Holy Communion in his Last Supper.  While Maundy Thursday is the actual commemoration of this event, the solemnity of Holy Week and its focus on Christ’s Passion on Good Friday overshadows Maundy Thursday as an occasion to celebrate and give thanks for the Sacrament itself.  In order to provide for a joyful commemoration of the sacrament, Pope Urban IV established the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264.   As the cycle of Lent, Holy Week, the Great Fifty Days of Easter, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday draws to a close and we enter into ordinary time, we celebrate the Holy Eucharist as the place in our ordinary lives where the veil between us and the unseen world is the thinnest.

A common way Episcopalians have celebrated Corpus Christi is a Festal Evensong, with the devotional ceremony known as the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, where the congregation meditates upon and reverences a consecrated host placed upon the altar, which the priest then uses to bless the faithful (whence comes the service’s name, Benediction).

Here at Trinity, we will celebrate a simple healing Eucharist as we normally do on Thursdays, with special Eucharistic readings and hymns for the Feast. 

The Eucharist was intended by Jesus as a sign of openness and inclusion to all.  It is clear that he practiced open table fellowship in his ministry as a sign of God’s love.  I wonder how Jesus feels when he sees that the Eucharist has become a sign of division among his people.  Some, stressing his words “this is my body, this is my blood,” take the elements as holy and divine, and have sought to protect them from “blasphemy” or “misuse” by the “wicked” or “unworthy.”  Others, stressing the idea that the gathered community celebrating the meal is his body, tend to belittle the devotions of the former group.  “Hoc est corpus meum” (“This is my body”) becomes “hocus-pocus.”   Eucharistic adoration is characterized as “cookie-worship.”  Again, I wonder how such things feel in the heart of our Savior, who meant the sacrament as a sign of universal inclusion, not exclusion or division. 

Grace and Peace. 

--Fr. Tony+