Eucharistic Renewal

Today, we celebrate one of the great feasts of the Church calendar: Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. This great feast takes on added importance for us this year. For the past couple years, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has been promoting a National Eucharistic Revival. Around the country, Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction are becoming more common. This revival is highlighted by a currently ongoing National Eucharistic Pilgrimage that ends at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis from July 17-21. As of yesterday, the blessed sacrament was moving towards Indianapolis from the north through the diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, from the west through the diocese of Salt Lake City, Utah, from the south through the archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Texas, and from the east through the archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Why is this necessary? Why do we need a special feast to celebrate the Eucharist? Why do we need a National Eucharistic Revival, a National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, and a National Eucharistic Congress? Why is it necessary to reinforce our faith in the Eucharist through these outward practices? Corpus Christi is not an ancient feast. It started after St. Juliana of Liège, a 13th century mystic, had a vision of the moon with a small bit missing, and was told that this represented the lack of a special feast in the Church calendar to commemorate the Eucharist. Ever since, questions have been raised about whether this places too much emphasis on the Eucharist. This objection was made when the feast was first proposed in the early 13th century, then promulgated in the late 13th century, with office and Mass propers written by St. Thomas Aquinas. This objection was made during the Protestant Reformation, and this feast, along with the Eucharistic processions and Benediction were some of the first things removed by almost all Protestant churches. This objection continues in some responses made to the National Eucharistic Revival.

This one objection: that we overemphasize the Eucharist to the detriment of the Christian faith, takes 3 primary forms. First, some say it detracts from the Liturgy and the Mass itself; Second, others say it is unbiblical and detracts from the Death and Resurrection of Christ; Third, some say it detracts from love of our neighbor and helps to cement unjust social structures. Each of these objections raises something true: they seek to promote some essential aspect of the Christian faith. However, I would argue the opposite on each point: To the first, placing emphasis on the Eucharist increases our devotion to the Liturgy, and to the Mass itself; to the second, placing emphasis on the Eucharist increases our devotion to Christ, the Word made Flesh who died and rose to save us from sin and death; and to the third, placing emphasis on the Eucharist increases our devotion to each other and helps us to live lives of genuine charity.

We can look at each of these aspects of the Eucharist more closely: first, the Eucharist as an aid for our devotion to the Liturgy. We know that the liturgy is the source and summit of the Christian life. The liturgy is the font through which we receive grace, the time set aside so that we can worship God and God can enter our lives. Not only that, our participation in the liturgy is a participation in the highest human activity possible, the heavenly liturgy celebrated eternally at the throne of God by all the angels and saints. How can abstracting devotion to the Eucharist from this context help? It would seem to be at best a distraction: taking the focus away from the whole of the liturgical life to focus on one aspect of it.

In practice, however, it instead allows us to participate more fully in the Liturgy as the summit of the Christian life. The Great Eucharistic Miracle, the transubstantiation where the unleavened bread brought to the altar and offered to God becomes the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ happens during the Mass. It is only because of this that any devotion to the Eucharist is possible. Every time we genuflect before the Sacred Species, kneel in front of the Tabernacle, or fall down in adoration before the Sacrament, we proclaim our faith in this fundamental truth: Jesus Christ becomes the bread we eat, and through our participation in that meal, provided we are prepared to receive Him, we are formed into the one body of Christ. By giving special attention to the Eucharist, we prepare ourselves to be conformed to Christ, we prepare ourselves to take our place in His Body, worshiping the Father before the Throne of God. Giving special attention to the Eucharist does not detract from the Mass as the source and summit of our faith, but rather emphasizes and depends on that fact.

Our second objection asks, but what about Christ? There is already a place where the Institution of the Eucharist is celebrated, on Holy Thursday. Celebrating the Institution of the Eucharist the day before our commemoration of Our Lord’s death on the cross connects it to the sacrificial offering of Christ. As we heard in today’s readings, the Passover and the Last Supper where the Eucharist was instituted are important Biblical accounts. Nowhere in the Bible does it talk about adoring Christ under the species of bread. The practice of Eucharistic Adoration and the celebration of a feast in honor of the Eucharist did not develop in most Orthodox churches, and was suppressed in most Protestant communions. Does it distract us from our focus on Christ’s death and resurrection?
On the contrary: our celebration of the Eucharist fundamentally ties in the Paschal mystery, and deepens our experience of it. The Christ that we adore under the species of bread is the Crucified and Risen Christ. In the visions St. Juliana was given, she was told that a special feast for the Eucharist could help prevent the faith in the body of Christ present on the altar from becoming tepid and cold. A special feast to celebrate the Eucharist, outside of the busyness of the Triduum, would help people to see behind the veil of the bread and wine to see the body, blood, soul and divinity of the Crucified and Risen Christ truly present. We face a similar situation today. Polls suggest that very few Catholics in the United States believe that Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity become truly present on the altar under the species of bread and wine. The best response to this is not talking about it, or saying the word “transubstantiation” over and over again. Instead, our response is faith. We kneel and adore our Savior. We habituate ourselves to belief by practicing our faith. We open ourselves to the grace of faith in Christ by humbling ourselves before his presence in the Eucharist.

The third objection asks us to move outside of ourselves. What about our brothers and sisters? What about the poor who we are especially called to serve? Should we not focus our energies on how to best incarnate Christ’s love in the world and alleviate their sufferings? It would seem that the resources and time put into the Eucharist detaches us from this world and prevents us from looking for and helping those who are in desperate need.

An example can help us see why this is mistaken. St. Teresa of Calcutta, Mother Teresa, is one of the greatest examples of serving the poor and loving our neighbor in all of history. She founded the Missionaries of Charity for exactly that mission: to serve the poorest of the poor, ministering to their needs, and helping them in any way possible. In 1976, she spoke at the most recent Eucharistic Congress, held in Philadelphia that year. During her speech, she discussed the holy hour that the Missionaries of Charity hold before the Blessed Sacrament every evening. Far from being a distraction from their work for the poor, Mother Teresa said that this practice helped them to better serve the poor. Adoring Christ in the Sacrament, uniting themselves to His Body in adoration, helped the sisters to truly become united in Christ with each other, and to see Christ under the suffering of those they ministered to. Without this, the work they did would not be possible. Far from separating them from the world, their devotion to the Eucharist showed them how important it was to serve the poorest of the poor: helped them to see the face of Christ in those abandoned by the world.

Far from merely an opportunity for a triumphalistic procession to show the world that Catholics still exist, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing, our devotion to the Eucharist is at the very center and heart of our faith. When we pray before the Blessed Sacrament, and participate in Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction, our love for the Liturgy, for Christ, and for each other increases. We help conform ourselves to the Body of Christ, the Church through our devotion.

Unfortunately, we will not have a procession and Benediction in honor of the Blessed Sacrament, as is done in some Parishes for today’s feast. Instead, I invite any of you who are able to kneel and briefly pray to the Blessed Sacrament, here with us in the tabernacle for a minute or two after the vessels have been purified.