2026-06-07 Solemnity of Corpus Christi

2026-06-07 Solemnity of Corpus Christi aka  Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ 

 

Opening Prayer

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ,
you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death.
May our faith sharing of this most blessed sacrament of your Body and Blood
help us to experience the salvation you won for us
and the peace of the kingdom
where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.  
Amen. 

Practice of Faith from last week

• Think about how God loved us and how that should inform our love for God and one another
• Reflect on places and moments in your life when God's love has been especially clear to you
• Consider times when someone demonstrated slowness to anger or abounding love or the kind of encouraging care to which paul exhorts the Corinthians. How did those experiences make you feel? What can you imitate from them? 

 

What is Corpus Christi 

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi aka  Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ 
In 1264, Pope Urban IV instituted the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi to celebrate the Real Presence of Christ, body, blood, soul and divinity, in the Eucharist - or transubstantiation -  which the Church teaches is the “source and summit of the Christian life”. 

The most challenging sermon that Jesus ever preached was not the Sermon on the Mount but the talk that Jesus gave at the Capernaum synagogue, after the miracle of the loaves and fish, concerning eating his Body and drinking Blood to gain eternal life, was not only literally revolting but was forbidden over and over again in the Old Testament. 

• Genesis 9:3–4: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”  
• Leviticus 3:17: “It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations, in all your settlements: you must not eat any fat or any blood.” 
• Leviticus 17:14: because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.
• Leviticus 19:26: Do not eat anything with the blood still in it. 
• Deuteronomy 12:23: “Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat.” 

Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ ... and they begin to walk away, rejecting both the message and the Messiah.

So what does Jesus do when confronted with this objection? One would think that, in order to mollify his opponents, he would take the opportunity to soften his rhetoric, to offer a metaphorical or symbolic interpretation of his words, so as at least to answer the most obvious difficulties. Instead, he intensifies what he had said: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” 

 

The Greek term behind “eat” here is not the usual phagein but rather trogein, a word customarily used to describe the way animals devour their food. We might render it “gnaw” or “chomp.” Therefore, to those who are revolted by the realism of his language, Jesus says, essentially, “Unless you gnaw on my flesh . . . you have no life in you.”

The reception of Holy Communion unites us with Christ (the head) and with the Church (the body). St. John Damascene says, “It is called Communion because we communicate with Christ through it, both because we partake of His flesh and Godhead, and because we communicate with and are united to one another through it”

Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a

The Israelites escape from bondage in Egypt and journey through the barren desert for 40 years sustained by Manna from heaven until they reach the Promised Land. 

 

Bondage in Egypt is an allegory for sin, addiction, ego, pride, self-absorption - all the things that separate us from God. The empty promises of the Devil that lead us to the slavery of sin.
The Israelites are freed from this bondage through the gracious intervention of God and are making their way to the Promised Land which is an allegory to the fullness of redemption we will find in Heaven.
But first they have to navigate through the tough journey of life wandering through the desert - an allegory of our own spiritual journey. 

 

In Baptism we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit but we are not yet in Heaven, along our life's journey we squander this gift. Like the Israelite we instinctively want to go back to the flesh pots or our sinful ways.

And Moses has to keep exhorting them to not look back but to fix their eyes on the Promised Land - and Moses intervenes for them with God who fed them with manna to sustain them in the desert -  an allegory for us needing the Eucharist - the true flesh and blood of Christ - to sustain us.

How naive is it for us to imagine we can make our way through this world without being sustained by the Holy Eucharist - before long we will fall back to the flesh pots of Egypt. 

 

So do the smart thing and take the true food and drink offered by Jesus in the Eucharist (when the bread and wine turns into the true body and blood of Jesus it is called transubstantiation) often and devoutly - just as Jesus taught us to pray when we say "Give us this day our daily bread'" when we say the Lord's Prayer

Psalm 147

Psalm 147, one of the five concluding Psalms of the 150 psalm psalter and is classified as a Community Hymn — a hymn of the people that celebrates God’s sovereign reign over the community of faith and over all creation. Psalm 147 anticipates the ultimate expression of incarnation in Jesus by linking God’s rule over the natural realm with God’s salvation for Jerusalem.

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Paul faces challenges in his work at Corinth including differences in class, religious background, and styles of leadership (“I belong to Apollos!” “I belong to Paul!” “I belong to Cephas!”) divide the early Corinthian Christians. In the face of these challenges, Paul hopes to bring the Corinthians together, reminding them of their primary loyalty to Christ.

John 6:51-58

By calling himself "the living bread that came down from heaven", Jesus is invoking manna their ancestors consumed in the desert during the Exodus from Egypt, but it differs in one crucial aspect: manna was temporary, as their ancestors gathered, ate, and died. In contrast, Jesus’ bread is his flesh, his very self that he has given up in death so we can have eternal life.
“Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus says, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day” (John 6:53-54). The words “flesh” and “blood” point to the ultimate sacrifice, where Jesus’ flesh will be broken and his blood will be spilled in his violent death on the cross when Jesus gave his whole self willingly for the salvation of mankind.
The Greek text indicated 'gnawing, chewing and munching at the flesh' and not the more polite verb “to eat” - a verb that suggests the physical crunching with the teeth accentuates that Jesus intends a real experience of participating in his death, in doing so he nourishes our faith, forgives our sins, and empowers us to be witnesses to the Gospel. 
Eternal life does not merely coming from believing but from embracing and participating in the body and blood of Christ so that Christ remains in us and we remain in Christ - similar to how intimate Jesus is with the Father, and the Father with the Son -we too can be joined with God for eternity
 

Flesh and blood constitute human life and knowing that the Torah forbids the eating of blood or of flesh with any blood left in it , Jesus did not water down the ask so as to please his followers, he was explicit in his message causing some to walk away
John 6:66-69 says: As a result of this, many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

 

Practice of Faith for this week

 

 Closing Prayer - Anima Christi

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O good Jesus, hear me.
Within your wounds hide me.
Separated from you let me never be.
From the evil one protect me.
At the hour of my death call me and close to you bid me,
that with your saints I may praise you for age upon age.  
Amen.

 Our Father ... Hail Mary ... Glory Be