Such a lovely room

Such a lovely room

Thursday, June 19, 2025

YEAR C 2025 corpus christi

Corpus Christi, 2025
Deuteronomy 8:2-3
1 Corinthians 11:23-29
John 6:47-58
Psalm 116:10-17

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

So today is the feast of Corpus Christi.  It’s not a big deal in most Episcopal churches, but I believe it should be.  Corpus Christi is Latin for the “Body of Christ,” and the day is intended to direct our attention to and appreciation for the sacrament.  Of course, like many things in the Episcopal Church, there is no clearly stated theology as far as what happens to the bread and wine in the Eucharistic celebration.

Catholics totally have this stuff down, with their talk of transubstantiation, saying the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Jesus, and some Episcopalians do believe that.  Protestant churches are on the other end of the spectrum, treating Holy Communion as a memorial meal that reminds us of Jesus, and some Episcopalians believe that.

But most of us are somewhere along the middle of these two extremes, believing that Jesus is somehow present in the bread and wine, and leaving it at that.  So with all that as background, toward the end of the service we will take the monstrance—which Pastor Ed across the street gave us—and place it on the Altar to display the consecrated host.  We will offer some prayers of devotion and sing a couple suitable hymns, the first of which was written by Thomas Aquinas for this feast day.  In some places, they finish the service with a parade around the neighborhood carrying the monstrance in procession.  But we will stick to using it for blessing the people at the end of the service.

And now you may be wondering, since we’re focusing on the body of Christ today, why did we sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” for the sequence hymn?  Well, given that today is also Juneteenth, I believe there is a connection between the real presence of Jesus in the sacrament, and the real bodies of our fellow human beings around us.  While the slaves in Galveston were indeed free, they did not know they were free for more than a year after the Emancipation Proclamation.  Someone had to tell them, and make sure they knew it.  And this is exactly how sharing the gospel works in people’s lives.  People are free and reconciled with God, but they need someone to tell them that!

And the connection between the body of Christ and the bodies of people is made known in the incarnation.  God walked among us in the real physical body of Jesus, which sanctified—and made holy—being human.  Bodies are sacred because God has inhabited one.  Physical presence has spiritual weight, you could say.  And what God has called good, we must not call evil.  What God has called free we must not call enslaved.  As Jesus himself said, “Whatever you do to the least of these you do it to me.”

Jesus is somehow present in the holy sacrament.  And Jesus is gloriously present in every person you meet.  We are called to honor those around us and we are called to give thanks for the gift of the holy sacrament, the body of Christ, and the bread of heaven.

Amen

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