What's missing in your life?

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

When the coronavirus pandemic first hit, I came to realise that I had taken many things for granted - a congregation at every Mass. The faithful could also expect a Mass waiting for them at every church and those who lived in urban areas could even pick and choose the time and place based on personal preference and convenience. But all that changed with the pandemic. Even when churches were reopened gradually, attending Mass was a privilege and a luxury because of the radical restriction of numbers and SOPs. I guess for all of us, the suspension of public Masses and closure of churches had helped us see what we had regularly taken for granted. We had received the Eucharist merely out of habit and could only appreciate its irreplaceable value when it was missing from our lives. Perhaps, God allowed this all to happen so that we might reevaluate the way in which we’ve been receiving the Eucharist.

This experience is not without precedent. There have been times throughout history when Christians were prohibited from worship. In the early centuries, attending Mass was not just a dangerous thing but life-threatening, not because there was a raging pandemic that threatened the safety and life of every congregant. Attending Mass could get you killed. In the Year 304, Christians of the northern African region of Abitinae gathered for Mass despite a prohibition on penalty of death. They were arrested and summarily sentenced to death. No one, neither old nor young, was spared. When confronted by the authorities about why they defied the Emperor, they replied, “Sine Dominico non possumus” – “Without Sunday, we cannot live.” Just like one cannot survive without food or oxygen, these Christians understood that they could not live without the Eucharist. They would risk everything, including their personal safety and lives, just to have a taste of the Bread from Heaven.

Can we live without the Eucharist? The pandemic has helped us become aware of how much we take the Eucharist for granted. When we do not eat, we grow weak and become sick. The lack of reception of the Eucharist makes us vulnerable to sin, we literally become spiritually dead. Without the Eucharist, we lose direction in life and we risk losing something far greater - eternal life, our immortal soul’s salvation.

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi was instituted in the 13th century to address this concern. It was a direct result of the private Eucharistic devotion and mystical experiences of a nun, St Juliana of Liège. When Juliana was 16, she had her first vision which recurred subsequently several times during her Eucharistic adoration. Her vision presented the moon in its full splendour, crossed diametrically by a dark stripe. This was not the dark patches that one can see on the moon surface on a clear night. It was something entirely different - unnatural.

The Lord made St Juliana understand the meaning of what had appeared to her. The moon symbolised the life of the Church on earth; the opaque line, on the other hand, represented the absence of a liturgical feast: namely, a feast in which believers would be able to adore the Eucharist so as to increase in faith, to advance in the practice of the virtues and to make reparation for offences to the Most Holy Sacrament. In other words, Juliana was shown what was significantly missing from the liturgical life of the Church.

When Pope Urban, who was personally acquainted to St Juliana, finally declared the Feast of Corpus Christi, he did so not because of any personal favour owed to this nun or because they both hailed from the same locality. Some questioned whether it was even necessary to add another feast since the Institution of the Eucharist is already celebrated on Holy Thursday.

But our Lord in the vision granted to St Juliana explained that: “Holy Thursday is more a day of sorrow than of joy,” since it coincided with Good Friday. Pope Benedict XVI also added that: “The Feast of Corpus Christi is inseparable from Holy Thursday, from the Mass in Caena Domini, in which the Institution of the Eucharist is solemnly celebrated. Whereas on the evening of Holy Thursday we relive the mystery of Christ who offers himself to us in the bread broken and the wine poured out.” But he adds, “on the day of Corpus Christi, this same mystery is proposed for the adoration and meditation of the People of God, and the Blessed Sacrament is carried in procession through the streets of the cities and villages, to show that the Risen Christ walks in our midst and guides us towards the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi allows the faithful to look at Our Eucharistic Lord with a greater sense of appreciation for the Blessed Sacrament and to tell the world: “this is exactly what you are missing in your lives!” That is why this celebration is marked by Eucharistic processions. These processions specifically are a reminder that we are to share the gift of the Eucharist with the world and make a bold proclamation of our belief in the Real Presence. We cannot control how other people react to Jesus but we can control how we respond to indifference, and our response should ultimately be one of charity. Public processions provide us with an opportunity to be a faithful witness to Christ in a world that has become indifferent or in some cases hostile towards Him. We are declaring to the world: “Without Sunday, without the Eucharist, we cannot live!”

In a world so obviously confused about the nature and purpose of human life, where so many sense something deeply missing and struggle to grasp at straw to fill that empty space, the sacred liturgy rightly celebrated is a most effective tool of evangelisation. In the sacred liturgy it is our Lord Himself who speaks to us and whose grace is at work in and through us, perfecting our nature and transforming it so that it might participate in the very life of God Himself. Thus, the Mass brings our Heavenly Lord down to earth but it also takes us up to Heaven. When the Mass is celebrated with reverence, love and devotion it truly becomes the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider beautifully describes the symbiotic relationship between the Church and the Eucharist: “The Eucharist is at the heart of the Church. When the heart is weak, the whole body is weak. So, when the practice around the Eucharist is weak, then the heart and the life of the Church is weak. And when people have no more supernatural vision of God in the Eucharist then they will start the worship of man, and then also doctrine will change to the desire of man.”

So, today, if you sense that there is something missing in your life, look no further - that something is a person: Jesus Christ. He comes to us in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood, to feed us when we are hungry, to quench our thirst when we are thirsty, to accompany us when we are lonely. He alone can fill the emptiness inside of us with joy, and by so doing, give our lives purpose and meaning.