Sunday, June 3, 2018


CORPUS CHRISTI

 Mark, Chapter 16, Verse 5-8
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 Law of Victory: Jesus’ Resurrection[1]

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!

Corpus Christi[2]

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:
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]

 At that time Jesus said to the multitudes of the Jews: My flesh is meat indeed and My blood is drink indeed; he that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live forever.

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.



[1] John Maxwell, The Maxwell Leadership Bible.
[3] Goffine’s Devout Instructions, 1896

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