The Body and Blood of Christ

Brothers and sisters:
The cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break,
is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one body,
for we all partake of the one loaf.

1 Corinthians 10:16 - 17


We ought be very familiar with the idea that as members of the church we are at the same time members of the Body of Christ. For 806 years the church has celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi (and since 1970 the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ), but in quite a different sense. In the middles ages there was a deep interest in the humanity of, and the physical body of Jesus.

The church’s understanding was enriched by the thinking of theologians who linked this physical sense with Jesus’ sacramental presence in the Eucharist. The Fourth Lateran Council, which coincided, perhaps not accidentally, with the introduction of this feast, extended the use of transubstantiation to the universal church: that is, at the consecration in the Lord's Supper the elements of the Eucharist, bread and wine, are transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus and that they are no longer bread and wine, but only retain their appearance of bread and wine. By the time of the Council of Trent this understanding had been defined with some clarity.

The desire of the faithful to give honour to and to adore Christ present in the Eucharist culminates in this feast day celebrated this Sunday. Many religious congregations, particularly of women, were founded specifically for the adoration of Christ’s Eucharistic presence.

Our Catholic understanding gives succour to, and nurtures our deepest desire to not only reach out to God, but to be comforted by a ‘knowable’, accessible presence. We extend that to ensuring that when we enter the church that we acknowledge that divine presence, described as The Real Presence, by genuflecting or bowing. This wonderful presence also provides a most wonderful invitation to each of us, drawing us to prayer, to relationship with the Lord, and indeed with each other.