Today, we celebrate the solemn Feast of Corpus Christi. It is a Feast which has three purposes: 1) to give God collective thanks for Christ’s abiding presence with us in the Eucharist and to honor Him there; 2) to instruct the people in the Mystery, faith, and devotion surrounding the Eucharist; and 3) to teach us to appreciate and make use of the great gift of the Eucharist, both as a Sacrament and as a sacrifice.
Although we formally celebrate the institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, the Church wants to emphasize its importance by a special Feast. It was Pope Urban IV who first extended the Feast to the universal Church’s calendar. This special day reminds us of the priority of the Word of God and the Eucharist in our lives.
For reflection: We need the bread which is His Body and the wine which is His Blood to be able, as a community and as individuals to grow in faith and to increase and develop our strength and courage. The Eucharist helps us to live “the Christ-life,” and to become more fully and more truly members of His Body.
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To ponder this week: The former Archbishop of San Francisco, the Most Rev. John Quinn, loved to tell the story of the arrival of Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity to open their house in the city. Poor Archbishop Quinn had gone to great efforts to make sure that their convent was, while hardly opulent, quite comfortable. He recalls how Mother Teresa arrived and immediately ordered the carpets removed, the telephones, except for one, pulled out of the wall, the beds, except for the mattresses taken away, and on and on. Explained Mother Teresa to the baffled Archbishop, “All we really need in our convent is the tabernacle.”
