CORPUS CHRISTI
5 On entering the tomb they saw a
young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and they were
utterly amazed. 6 He said to them, “Do not be
amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is
not here. Behold, the place where they laid him. 7 But go and tell his disciples and
Peter, ‘He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told
you.’” 8 Then they went out and fled from the tomb,
seized with trembling and bewilderment. They said nothing to
anyone, for they were afraid.
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother
of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint him. They
were doing an act of mercy to clean Christ’s corpse and properly bury him. When
they experienced the power of God raising from the dead they we shocked to
silence.
The disciples had lost the teacher and Lord. The
Jewish leaders had silenced their opposition. The people had lost their hope of
a revolution against Rome. Even the devil thought he had finally stopped this
divine leader and brought about the abandonment of the Gospel. What a surprise
awaited that first Resurrection Sunday morning! When Jesus rose from the dead,
He gave His followers a potent hope to end every doubt about His kingdom.
The Wisdom of the
Cross
The world can never recognize the wisdom of the cross.
The other day while sitting in my church for mass it was revealed to me the
wisdom of the cross.
·
As
the Eucharistic celebration was being conducted I was admiring our church and
as I gazed on the altar I notice we had the cross which represented Christ dead
for our sins.
·
Behind
the cross lit up with the sun waning was the stained glass of Christ ascending
to the Father. I asked interiorly where the representation of Christ
resurrected is? Then almost immediately an interior voice stated,
·
“You
are the representation of Christ resurrected.” At first, I withdrew from the
idea, sinner that I am.
Then I knew that this was the divine wisdom that we by
the frequent reception of the Blessed Sacrament the Holy Body of Christ physically
and spiritually become the resurrected Christ to our families, neighbors, our
friends and even dare I say our enemies. May God’s will and wisdom be done!
Feast of Corpus Christi, in the U.S., said on the Sunday rather
than the Thursday after the Feast of the Holy Trinity. An adoration of the Food
that sustains us on our post-Pentecostal pilgrimage and "the pledge of our
future glory" The history of Corpus Christi started with a humble Belgian
girl at the age of sixteen, who began having visions of a bright moon marred by
a small black spot. After years of seeing this perplexing portent, Jesus Christ
appeared to her and revealed its meaning. The moon, He told her, represented
the Church calendar, and the black spot the absence of a feast in honor of the
Blessed Sacrament. That nun was St.
Juliana, Prioress of Mont Cornillon (1258), and the Feast she was
commissioned by our Lord to promote was the feast of Corpus Christi. Even before its universal promotion in 1314,
Corpus Christi was one of the grandest
feasts of the Roman rite. At the request of Pope Urban IV (d. 1264), the
Mass proper’s and divine office for this day were composed or arranged by St. Thomas Aquinas, whose teaching on
the Real Presence was so profound that the figure of Jesus Christ once
descended from a crucifix and declared to him, "Thou hast written well of
me, Thomas." The mastery with which Aquinas weaves together the
scriptural, poetic, and theological texts of this feast amply corroborates this
conclusion.
Processions
& Pageants
Though
Maundy Thursday is in a sense the primary feast of the Blessed Sacrament,
Corpus Christi allows the faithful to specially reflect on and give thanks for
the Eucharist. Hence there arose a number of observances centered on
Eucharistic adoration. The most conspicuous of these is the splendid Corpus
Christi procession. This public profession of the Catholic teaching
on the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was solemnly encouraged
by the Council of Trent: there is even an indulgence attached to all who
participate in it. By the 1600s, the procession on Corpus Christi had become
the most famous of the year. Long parades of faithful walk with the Blessed
Sacrament (carried in a monstrance by the priest) while church bells peal and
bands play. In Latin countries, the streets are blanketed with boughs and
flowers, often elaborately woven together. Sometimes a variation on the custom
of Stations is employed (see Stational
Churches, etc.), where the
procession stops at several points for benediction and adoration. By its very
nature, the Corpus Christi procession encouraged pageantry. In
addition to the grandeur mentioned above, vivid symbolic reenactments
of various teachings became a part of the procession. During the height of
baroque piety, people impersonating demons would run along aside the Blessed
Sacrament, pantomiming their fright
and fear of the Real Presence.
Others would dress as ancient’s gods and goddesses to symbolize how even the
pagan past must rise and pay homage to Christ. Still others would carry all
sorts of representations of sacred history: Moses and the serpent, David and
Goliath, the Easter lamb, the Blessed Virgin, etc. But the most popular of all
these was the custom of having children
dress as angels. Appearing in white (with or without wings), these boys
and girls would precede the Blessed Sacrament as symbols of the nine choirs of
heavenly hosts who ever adore the Panis Angelicum, the Bread of Angels.
At Holy Trinity German Church, the Corpus Christi procession was the most important of the year. One witness to the procession of 1851 wrote:
At Holy Trinity German Church, the Corpus Christi procession was the most important of the year. One witness to the procession of 1851 wrote:
The girls clad in white,
with lilies in their hands, groups of symbolic figures, with banner and flags,
the boys with staffs and rods, all the associations of the parish with their
signs and symbols and burning candles, finally the flower-strewing little
children preceding the clergy -- all these made a fantastic impression
(from Holy Trinity German Catholic
Church of Boston: A Way of Life, Robert J. Sauer (Dallas, TX: Taylor
Publishing, 1994), p. 49)
Corpus
Christi[3]
Why did Jesus say,
this is the bread that came down from heaven? He wished thereby to teach the Jews
that the bread which He would give them, like the manna, came down from heaven,
and was, indeed, the only true bread from heaven. The manna was but a type and
could only prolong the life of the body. The type was now to be fulfilled; the
bread that He was about to give them would impart to them eternal life, and
this bread would be His flesh, Himself, Who truly came from heaven, to redeem
mankind, and to bring them to life everlasting. Jesus calls His flesh bread,
partly on account of its likeness to the manna, partly on account of its
effect; for as bread nourishes the body, and sustains the earthly life, so the
body of Christ, in the Holy Sacrament, nourishes the soul, and imparts to it,
continually, a new, divine, and everlasting life.
What is the Holy
Sacrament of the Altar? It
is that sacrament in which, after the words of its institution have been spoken
by the priest, Jesus Christ is present, whole and entire, in His Godhead and in
His manhood, under the appearance of bread and wine.
When and how did
Jesus institute this sacrament? At
the Last Supper; In the night, before He was betrayed, He took bread, and,
giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples saying, Take and eat, for
this is My body which will be given for you. In the same manner, He took the
chalice and said, Take and drink, for this chalice is the new covenant in My
blood. Do this as often as you drink from it in commemoration of Me.
What did Jesus affect
by these words? He
changed bread and wine into His most precious body and blood.
Has He given to
others the power to do the same? Yes;
He gave this power to His apostles and their successors, the bishops and
priests, in these words: Do this in commemoration of Me.
What takes place at
the words of consecration? Bread
and wine are changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and only the
outward appearances of bread and wine remain.
How is Jesus present
in the Most Holy Sacrament? He
is present, truly, really, and substantially, in His divinity and humanity, in
flesh and blood, in body and soul, under the appearances of bread and wine.
Why do we believe
this?
1. Because the words of Jesus do not reasonably admit
of any other meaning: since by them we see
(a)
that Jesus gave His disciples a certain nourishment which they were to eat;
(b)
that this nourishment was bread and wine to all appearances, but Jesus called
the bread His body, which was afterwards to be sacrificed for us, and the wine
His blood, which was to be shed for us: this food consequently was not bread
and wine, but, under the appearance of bread and wine, was indeed His body and
blood; since what He gave for our redemption was not bread and wine, but His
true body and His true blood;
(c)
that as the body and blood of Jesus were inseparable from His soul and
divinity, He gave Himself up for our nourishment, whole and undivided, as He hung,
bled, and died upon the cross;
(d)
that He commanded what He had done to be continued until He should come again
(1 Cor. xi. 26), that is, until the end of the world; and that He,
(e)
on account of this being His testament, and the New Law, was not at liberty to
speak figuratively, but plainly and distinctly.
2. Because the apostles preached this very doctrine.
3. Because the Catholic Church, the pillar and
foundation of truth, has thus constantly taught, from the apostle’s times down
to the present day, as the oldest Councils and the Holy Fathers unanimously
testify.
Daily Devotions
·
Please
Pray for Senator
McCain and our country; asking Our Lady of Beauraing to
intercede.
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