Bulletin, June 14, 2020; Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Dear Friends at Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish and Saint Frances Cabrini Parish:
 
Praised be Jesus Christ!  This Sunday we are blessed to celebrate the Solemn Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, or Corpus Christi as it has been popularly known for many centuries.  Much like Trinity Sunday this past weekend, it is another feast day placed on the Church’s annual calendar to focus our attention and devotion on a particular doctrine of our faith, in this case the Real Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. 
 
Maybe we are viewing the Feast of Corpus Christi in a different light this year for a couple of different reasons.  One reason, true for me for sure, has to do with our deprivation of the celebration of public Masses due to the recent health emergency restrictions.  How often I heard from so many of you about the sadness you felt over not being able to receive the Eucharist during the shutdown.  How true it is that we often do not realize how fortunate we are to have something until it is taken away from us.  I thought often, especially during the Easter celebrations, of the anguished words of Mary Magdalene on Easter Sunday morning: “they have taken my Lord!” and how aptly this applied to our situation of locked churches and the halting of our sacramental celebrations.  Corpus Christi is a feast day that is meant to exclaim with all of the liturgical voice that we can muster just how much we love and appreciate the gift of the Holy Eucharist.  This year I think our exclamation will be especially loud.
 
Something else is different for probably most of us this year on the Feast as well, namely that the congregation gathered for Mass will not be allowed to receive the Eucharist under both sacramental forms of the bread and the wine.  Anyone with regular memories of Mass attendance prior to the 1970’s will remember when only the Hosts were given as the rule. For many of the rest of us who are younger, we have never known a liturgical experience without chalices of the Precious Blood.  It is true that many Catholics have grown to appreciate the opportunity of receiving both sacramental forms, meaning that perhaps there is a sadness this Sunday in this change in liturgical practice. If this is the case, it is a sadness that can be offered up as a prayer for the ongoing healing and cleansing of the world from all that is ill and evil, until the day when we enjoy the fullness of the heavenly banquet.
 
However we may happen to FEEL about the offering (or not) of the chalice at Mass to the congregation, the occasion of today’s feast day is a good opportunity for the doctrinal reminder that the fullness of Christ’s sacramental presence is encountered in either the Host or in receiving from the chalice.  This has been the Church’s teaching since the beginning, and is part of the reason why for most of our history, we only allowed the congregation to receive the Host at Mass.  It is no less the Real Presence.  The fullness of the sensory reality of the Lord’s presence might perhaps be easier to grasp when one receives under both forms, which is part of why for a time we have allowed it, but it is no less his presence to receive only one form.
 
This is a tremendous blessing because another reason, among many, why for most of our history we only offered the Hosts at Mass is because offering both forms is in many ways very impractical. We are a Church that has been through centuries of plagues, which has a way of honing us down to the practices that are durable and essential.  We are once again falling back on the same, most durable of practices to get us through, by only offering the Hosts for reasons of health concerns.  The question is:  will we return again one day to offering the chalice at Mass?  I think it is too early to tell, but my gut sense tells me that it likely will not happen for a very long time. 
 
Which brings us back to the Feast Day.  The doctrine of the Real Presence still stands, chalices or no, which is actually a great testament to the genius of the Lord who gave us something so durable as a means to worship him and receive him.  For all of this, we praise him on this great feast day.
 
-Father Nathan