Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

Prior to the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, the Church celebrated a feast named “Corpus Christi” on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday and a second feast named “The Most Precious Blood” on July 1.  After the Council, the two separate feasts were joined together to create the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.  Throughout much of the world, that solemnity is still celebrated on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday; however, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked that it be celebrated on the Sunday following Trinity Sunday for all of the churches in the U.S. 

The three cycles of the Lectionary for Sunday Mass include three different sets of readings for the solemnity.  During Cycle A we concentrate our attention on the Bread which becomes the Body of Christ.  In Cycle B, we focus our gaze on the mystery of the Blood of Christ shed for our sins.  Cycle C includes readings that speak of the ministers of the Eucharist. 

As we are using Cycle B in 2015, we will hear about the blood ritual of the Sinai Covenant and how that ritual informs the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  Moses gathered the blood of slaughtered animals and sprinkled the blood on the altar and on the people symbolizing the covenantal union between God and the people Israel.  Every year on the Feast of the Atonement, that ritual was recalled as the high priest sprinkled the Ark of the Covenant kept in the Holy of Holies, and on the people gathered in the Courtyard of the Israelites.

The sacred author of the Letter to the Hebrews reflects on this practice and, while admitting the efficacy of the ritual, introduces us to a far more powerful ritual which recalls the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, a sacrifice which was offered once for all with no need to be repeated annually.  Now, when we gather around the table of the Lord, we do so to remember what Christ has done for us.  In that memory, we make the sacrifice real in our midst so that we can participate in it just as surely as the disciples and apostles participated in it some 2,000 years ago.

In the Gospel of St. Mark, we hear the narrative of the institution of the Eucharist.  St. Mark follows the tradition that the Eucharist was first celebrated at a Passover seder meal, the only meal that was prepared by the men of the family.  Jesus’ disciples prepare a place for him to celebrate the Passover where he uses the Jewish tradition to introduce the apostles to the new covenant.  Like the old, the new covenant is ratified in blood; i.e., in the life of the sacrificial victim.  The Eucharist is, like so much else in the Scriptures, a two-edged sword.  The blood or life of the victim gives life to those who keep the covenant, but it also reminds us that those who violate the covenant are liable to suffer the same fate as the victim(s) of the sacrifice.  “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.  A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.” (I Corinthians 11:27-29)

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator