The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Year B)
While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
"Take it; this is my body."
—Mark 14:22
The Church’s annual celebration of Corpus Christi—The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ—is a uniquely Catholic celebration. Inspired by the devotion of Saint Juliana of Mount-Cornillon and Blessed Eva of Liège, this feast was added to the Church’s calendar in 1264. We could say that, in a sense, every celebration of the Mass is a celebration of Corpus Christi, but on this day, we are invited to reflect on the gift of Christ’s abiding presence in the Eucharist in a particular way. And, in the readings assigned to this feast this year, the Church asks us to pause and consider the sacrifice and self-gift that are embodied in the Eucharist.
“Today’s Solemnity reminds us that in our fragmented lives, the Lord comes to meet us with a loving ‘fragility,’ which is the Eucharist. In the Bread of Life, the Lord comes to us, making himself a humble meal that lovingly heals our memory, wounded by life’s frantic pace of life. The Eucharist is the memorial of God’s love.”
-Pope Francis, Homily for Corpus Christi 2017
As I have reflected on the meaning of this solemnity over the years, I have often returned to the image of a mother and her child. Although this might seem out of place, the image of Christ as “mother” was a popular theme for medieval monastic writers, including Blessed William of Saint-Thierry and the Doctors of the Church Saints Anselm of Canterbury and Bernard of Clairvaux. However, I think it is Blessed Julian of Norwich who best captured this idea in her Revelations of Divine Love:
So Jesus Christ who sets good against evil is our real Mother. We owe our being to him--and this is the essence of motherhood! --and all the delightful, loving protection which ever follows. God is as really our Mother as he is our Father. (Chapter 59)
And, more vividly:
A mother can give her child milk to suck, but our dear mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and he does so most courteously and most tenderly with the holy sacrament, which is the precious food of life itself… The mother can lay the child tenderly to her breast, but our tender mother Jesus, he can familiarly lead us to his blessed breast through his sweet open side. (Chapter 60)
While these metaphors might be unfamiliar or even uncomfortable ways of thinking about God (and especially Jesus), they beautifully express the intimate and total gift of self that is offered to us in the Eucharist.
As Sister Barbara Reid, OP, has observed in Abiding Word: Year B,
In the world of Jesus, the expression “body and blood” was a way of speaking of the whole person. “Body,” soma, connotes the whole physical person, while “blood,” haima, is the life force (Deuteronomy 12:23). Today we speak of “body, mind, and spirit” when referring to the whole self. This feast celebrate the gift of Christ, whose entire self was entrusted to us, both in his ministry of preaching and healing and in his ultimate act of self-surrender in death.
The images of sacrifice that are included in the First and Second Readings for this feast help us understand how significant the offering and sharing of Jesus’ Body and Blood really is.
In the Eucharist, we have both sacrifice and gift as his handing over of his body and blood—all that he is—at the Last Supper was an anticipation of the total offering of himself that took place on that Good Friday. Jesus loves us so much that he holds nothing back from us. He gives all of himself to us. His love becomes the source of our life. And, just as mothers give of their very selves to nourish their children, Jesus does the same for us.
As we adore and give thanks for the gift of the Eucharist on this Corpus Christi, we are also invited to consider how we are using the gift we have received. Are we open to the life—his life—that Jesus offers us in the sacrament of his Body and Blood and are we willing to offer the gift of our selves for the sake of others in remembrance of him?
O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption. Who live and reign with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
