REFLECTIONS ON CORPUS CHRISTI | KAIROS GLOBAL | JANUARY 2024

Author: Josemon Abraham

Intro: Josemon Abraham writes on understanding the importance of the Holy Eucharist and what some of the saints spoke about it. 

We are in the second year of the National Eucharistic Revival, sponsored by the US Catholic bishops. The revival aims to inspire people to encounter Jesus in the Eucharist, to renew the Church by enkindling a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. 

Each year the Catholic Church commemorates the feast of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus (Corpus Christi), central to Catholic teaching and faith. This feast was originally proposed by St Thomas Aquinas. On this liturgical solemnity the Church honours the Eucharist, reminding all to recognise that it is the true presence of Jesus Christ – his body and blood, soul and divinity; not Jesus who is dead – but Jesus who is risen and alive! 

According to Pew Research Center, only 31% of Catholics believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The revival website says: ‘We all need healing, yet many of us are separated from the very source of our strength. Jesus Christ invites us to return to the source and summit of our faith — his real presence in the Holy Eucharist.’

God, the Holy Trinity, loves us so intimately that God thirsts to unite with each one of us, in a unique and intimate way, much more than we can ever imagine. We all know how essential food and drink are for our survival on Earth. By becoming food and drink for us, as the bread of eternal life, Jesus wants to unite each one of us with the Holy Trinity, to be united forever. 

God expresses love for humankind by giving his Eucharistic Son, his only begotten Son. Jesus, in his body, blood, soul, and divinity, gives himself as food and nourishment to his Church. The response on our part is a return of Eucharist, of giving thanks. It is a mystery of faith, faith given, faith received, and the only thing which can be perceived with the senses is that of eating and drinking. 

St Francis of Assisi exclaimed: ‘O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! That the Lord of the whole universe, God, and the Son of God, should humble himself like this and hide under the form of a little bread, for our salvation.’

Jesus, the Son of God, Lord of the Universe, humbled himself and lived among us showing us a way of life. Jesus emptied himself to become food and drink for us, so essential for survival. He humbled himself and became a servant to serve us. Jesus said, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28). One cannot serve another without first becoming humble before the other.

Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not only for his or her own interests, but also for those of others. Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2: 3-8). 

Humility leads us to freely sharing what is ours with others. Humility enables us to trust others with confidence. Humility is essential to build and sustain a loving community – be it family, parish, or society at large. The perfect model of community is the Holy Trinity itself. The Father gives/shares all that he has with his only begotten Son (John 17:10). The Son gives himself completely to fulfil his Father's will. The Holy Spirit takes what is Jesus's and shares with us (John 16:14-15). There is no dispute in this mutual sharing of everything within the Holy Trinity. This truth and model for our life has been revealed to us through Jesus. 

Jesus prayed for the unity of his believers. But can unity be achieved or sustained without humility? Without service for others? Without sharing what we have with others? Humility is essential to giving and receiving with gratitude. Every day, we pray thus in the Eucharistic prayer during the Holy Mass: ‘Humbly we pray that, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit.’ Consumption of the Body and Blood of Jesus, unites us intimately with God and inseparably with fellow human beings. We are made one community in the body of Christ.

In his Easter Sermon, 227, St Augustine exhorts: ‘If we receive the Eucharist worthily, we become what we receive.’ And in receiving Christ, we become one body in him, and through him, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Through receiving the Eucharist, we enter into a unique and personal relationship with the Trinity and with one another, the Body of Christ. We become what we eat.

Included below are some quotes from a few of our beloved saints about the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. 

St Thomas Aquinas: The Eucharist is the sacrament of love: It signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta: Every Holy Communion fills us with Jesus and we must, with Our Lady, go in haste to give him to others. 

St Francis de Sales: When the bee has gathered the dew of heaven and the earth’s sweetest nectar from the flowers, it turns it into honey, then hastens to its hive. In the same way, the priest, having taken from the altar the Son of God (who is as the dew from heaven and true son of Mary, flower of our humanity), gives him to you as delicious food.

St Euphrasia: To speak of the Blessed Sacrament is to speak of what is most sacred. How often, when we are in a state of distress, those to whom we look for help leave us; or what is worse, add to our affliction by heaping fresh troubles upon us. He is always there, waiting to help us.

St John Chrysostom: It is not the man who is responsible for the offerings as they become Christ’s Body and Blood; it is Christ himself who was crucified for us. The standing figure belongs to the priest who speaks these words. The power and the grace belong to God. ‘This is my Body,’ he says. And these words transform the offerings.

St Cyril of Jerusalem: Since Christ himself has said, ‘This is my Body,’ who shall dare to doubt that it is his Body?

St Maximilian Kolbe: If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion.

St John Vianney: I throw myself at the foot of the tabernacle like a dog at the foot of his master.

St Pio of Pietrelcina: A thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

St Angela of Foligno: If we paused for a moment to consider attentively what takes place in this sacrament, I am sure that the thought of Christ’s love for us would transform the coldness of our hearts into a fire of love and gratitude.

St Augustine: What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ, and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction.

Josemon Abraham lives in Williamstown, New Jersey with his wife Jessy and four children. He spends most of his time conducting Taize Prayers and reflections for various age groups and supporting the local parish in various capacities. He works as a Portfolio Risk Manager.