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Blandina and Her Companions, the Martyrs of Lyons
Grant, O Lord, that we who keep the feast of the holy martyrs Blandina and her companions may be rooted and grounded in love of you, and may endure the sufferings of this life for the glory that shall be revealed in us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Scripture citation(s): Deuteronomy 8:2-3; Revelation 19:1-2a, 4-9; John 6:47-58
A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
on
Deuteronomy 8:2-3; Revelation 19:1-2a, 4-9; John 6:47-58
✛
A Sermon for the Feast of Corpus Christi
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And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi, that is to say, The Feast of the Body of Christ; a feast that presents an opportunity to encourage renewed devotion and reverence for the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But, we ought not to diminish our discernment of the body to the Eucharist alone. The body of Jesus has been revealed to us in many ways so that it may discerned throughout the church year.
The Annunciation celebrates the incarnation; God taking on flesh when the Virgin Mary conceives by the Holy Spirit. Advent anticipates the coming of this person, foretold by the prophets to be the savior of the world. We meet this human being face-to-face beholding a baby who is God and whose birth we celebrate at Christmas. The baby grows into a man and at turns is revealed to be very much man and very much God, thus Epiphany, Baptism, Transfiguration. We crucify the man making a corpse of that body on Good Friday. The corpus was buried and three days later is witnessed to be resurrected: and that is Easter. Now we have a glorified body that is exalted into heaven and seated at God’s right hand: The Ascension. The Holy Spirit comes down from heaven indwelling believers and making them a part of his body that we call the church and Christ is its head: Pentecost. And within that body, we are commanded and invited to eat the flesh of Jesus in the Eucharist: Corpus Christi. All of our observances touch upon the fact that we remember and revere a real person who was and is really bodily present. “For the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory.”[1]
But today our observance is particularly concerned with the sacrament of the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Mass. By whatever name you prefer, it is that particular intersection where outward and visible and inward and spiritual intersect; the outward signs of bread and wine, the inward reality of flesh and blood. When Jesus began teaching that his body would become food for us, right away some who were listening to this debated among themselves how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus didn’t bother explaining how, nor did he set forth doctrines of transubstantiation, consubstantiation, receptionism, memorialism. He just kept teaching that his body and blood were food for us and that whoever ate his flesh and drank his blood would dwell in him and he would dwell in us forever.
Sometime later on the evening of his arrest Jesus instituted a meal with bread and wine and told his closest disciples that the bread was his body and the wine was his blood. And that they were to continue to gather together and to eat a supper of bread and wine and it would become for them his body and blood. The church has obeyed this command better than any other that our Lord ever gave to us. More than loving God, more than loving neighbor, we have done this.
Suppose, we had the opportunity to interact with any of those other manifestations of the body as they happened. Suppose you were in the stable when our Lord was born; or saw to his burial after the crucifixion or were able to hold onto him when he appeared to you after the resurrection. Loving him as much as you love him now, how would you have handled his body? Would it have been a matter of indifference or one of devotion, a burden or a privilege?
“And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us, and, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, to bless and sanctify these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the Body and Blood of thy dearly-beloved Son Jesus Christ.”[2]
Not only here at Saint Thomas Church but at all the altars in all the churches throughout the world where the faithful affirm the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist; an opportunity is given for the faithful to handle the body of Christ.
Do you see the mystical cooperation of the holy Trinity? Prayer to the Father, the power of the Holy Spirit making for us, out of bread and wine, the body and blood of the Son. A feast is laid in our presence by the persons of the Trinity themselves. And we guests are invited to the table upon which our Lord’s body reposes. That body is broken and divided and distributed to any here who have been grafted into his body through the waters of baptism. And so you come, each one of you, to the table and you anticipate an encounter with Jesus, the real presence of Jesus. The gift of that presence begs devotion, faith and a little tender loving care.
We kneel to receive the sacrament. Here are the words of George Herbert on this posture. “In the manner of receiving the Eucharist the parson useth all reverence himself so he administers to none but the reverent. The feast indeed requires sitting, because it is a feast; but man’s unpreparedness asks kneeling.”[3] Which of us can presume to say that we are truly prepared to handle the body of God incarnate? “We do not presume to come to this thy table O merciful Lord trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.” Our posture is born out of the recognition of our insufficient condition in the face of the perfect sufficiency of the remedy that will be placed in our hand.
Though practices have varied, one that is appointed in the prayer book and dates from at least the 4th century is this: The elements are presented to us with words that are themselves a declaration of faith. The body of Christ. The Blood of Christ. This begs a response and the response is, Amen. The recipient participates with the minister in a profession of faith affirming that yes, indeed this is the body and blood of Christ. So it is entirely appropriate and very meet to receive the body and the blood with this affirmation on your lips.
Then the body is placed in the hand. We teach our Sunday School children and our choir boys to make a throne with their hands upon which to receive their Lord. And we ask them to always be mindful that we receive communion, we don’t take it: reception being the very nature of a gift. So we ask them to not snatch the host from the priest’s hand. Not to pick it up and wave it around, or carry it off, and never, ever to leave it behind, dropping it, or in any way abandoning the host at the altar. To do so is to do injury to the body of Christ; to abandon or reject our dear Lord at his moment of self-offering.
And I am very proud of our young communicants, a more devout and careful body of recipients as any parish could hope for. And I set them in front of you much as our Lord set forth children as an example to his disciples. “Truly, whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.”[4] I challenge each of us to be imitators of them and to outdo one another in showing honor.
This gift of the real presence of Christ asks nothing more than reverence and small acts of devotion, affirmation and tender loving care, but imparts so much more than we dare ask or imagine.
[1] John 1.14
[2] Book of Common Prayer p.342
[3] A Priest to the Temple Ch.22
[4] Luke 18.17
