Dear Friends,

Above is one of, if not my favorite image, that I believe defines our life as Church. It was taken from the entrance of St. Andrew the Apostle Church in Drexel Hill. From the point of view of someone outside the Church, you are greeted by our Lord’s words featured above the doors: “Ego sum ostium per me si quis introierit salvabitur.” [I am the gate. Whoever enters through Me will be saved. (Jn 9: 10)] Then, as you look beyond the threshold, you can behold the splendor of our Catholic faith … as you see the Baptismal Font at which a person is initiated into our faith; the Altar of Sacrifice upon which Jesus’ prayer and eternal sacrifice of praise is recreated and where we are invited into a deeper and holy communion with the Triune God; the Crucifix surrounded by depictions of the saints and angels in the heavenly court. Finally, your eyes focus on the center, the monstrance containing the Most Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ exposed for adoration. Then, you can behold the streams of light emanating from the Eucharist… from this place to the ends of the earth. This august mystery, which is so far beyond our comprehension, is understood only in humility, love, and trust … it alone gives meaning to our lives.

As we celebrate this great Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord, let us reflect more seriously upon the invitation that the Good Shepherd extends to us as stated in the Secon Vatican Council’s Apostolic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium: “Incorporated in the Church through baptism, the faithful are destined by the baptismal character for the worship of the Christian religion; … They are more perfectly bound to the Church by the sacrament of Confirmation, and the Holy Spirit endows them with special strength so that they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ. Taking part in the Eucharistic sacrifice, which is the fount and apex of the whole Christian life, they [the faithful] offer the Divine Victim to God, and offer themselves along with It. … Strengthened in Holy Communion by the Body of Christ, they then manifest in a concrete way that unity of the people of God which is suitably signified and wondrously brought about by this most august sacrament.” (11) This is echoed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states: “The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life.’ ‘The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it.’” (§1324)

Why do we celebrate this Solemnity? Let’s go back to the year of our Lord, 1263, when a priest by the name of Peter of Prague, who carried a secret, despite celebrating Holy Mass each day, deep down, he doubted that the bread over which he spoke the words of our Lord in consecration was really transubstantiated into the true Body and Blood of Jesus. “It’s just a symbol,” he thought. Tormented by his doubt, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, prayed at the Tomb of St. Peter, and asked for only one grace, the gift of faith. On his way back to Bohemia, he stopped in Bolsena, a town about 80 miles northwest of Rome, but when he celebrated Holy Mass the next morning, everything changed. At the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), as he was breaking the host before the reception of Holy Communion, the consecrated Host began to bleed, the Precious Blood drip down his hands, soaked the altar cloth, and dripped onto the marble floor. He was terrified, so he ran to the sacristy attempting to hide the host, but the Precious Blood fell on the stone floor along the way and can still be seen today. Pope Urban IV, who was staying in Orvieto, a nearby city, heard about the event and asked that the relic of the host and altar cloth be brought to him. When they were presented to him in the city square, Pope Urban knelt on the ground in adoration and proclaimed, “Corpus Christi” [the Body of Christ]. The following year, Pope Urban established the Feast of Corpus Christi for the universal Church, which we celebrate to this day. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: In the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, “the Body and Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” “This presence is called ‘real’ … that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes Himself wholly and entirely present.” [§1374]

Be of good cheer and have a blessed week!

Msgr. Grous