A Corpus Christi Postscript
By JAMES MONTI
The great Solemnity of Corpus Christi has now passed, yet for many of us, the memories of this year’s celebration linger as an inspiration and a sign of hope amid so much evil in our world. On the day before Corpus Christi, I had the privilege of attending the Ordination of three young priests at a cathedral about an hour’s drive from me — the Cathedral of St. Agnes in Rockville Centre, N.Y. What was particularly astonishing and quite encouraging was the huge turnout for the Ordination. The number of people in attendance was so large that many of us, a hundred or more, had to stand in the back or the side aisles because every seat was filled.
Moreover, much of the congregation consisted of young families with lots of babies and small children (more baby carriages than I could count!), as well as families with teenaged children, all dressed in their Sunday best and admirably reverent in their deportment, serious about why they were there, lending their spiritual support to the three ordinands in their oblation of their lives for the service of God and His Church. When the time for Holy Communion came, I was happily surprised to see that many were receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, with a significant number genuflecting before receiving and evening kneeling to receive the Host.
In his words of exhortation to the newly ordained priests, the bishop — His Excellency Bishop John Barres of Rockville Centre — admirably admonished them to bear witness courageously to the Ten Commandments, the moral teachings of the Church, and what he called “Catholic Anthropology” — what seemed to me a fairly obvious reference to the Church’s irreformable doctrine and biological truth that “male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27) — fortified by a deep love for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.
Following the Mass, there were so many who wanted to receive a “First Blessing” from the new priests that for quite a few it took over an hour of patiently waiting in line to get their blessing. But it was well worth the wait.
The next day, the Sunday celebration of Corpus Christi, brought even more signs of hope for the Church’s future. At an early morning Mass I attended, the pastor gave one of the finest Corpus Christi homilies I have ever heard. He began by asking us, as he pointed toward the Tabernacle, to ponder whether we would be willing to die for “what’s in that Tabernacle.” He then proceeded to describe the stark contrast between how the Holy Eucharist was treated and received many decades ago and how it is most commonly treated and received now.
He told of how it was formerly the universal norm to receive on the tongue, reverently kneeling side by side at an altar rail, with only the hands of the priest allowed to touch the Host, and how when by chance a Host fell, everything stopped so that the place where the Host had fallen could be “purified” — i.e., that any sacred Particles from the fallen Host might be reverently collected.
He then contrasted this with what usually goes on now, with almost everyone casually taking the Host in their hands, with little or no thought given to whether they are in a state of grace or not, with the Tabernacle no longer at the center of the altar but instead consigned to some degrading location off to the side or in the back of the church.
It is this huge change in how we treat the Holy Eucharist, he observed, that in large part serves to explain why so many Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Passionately he stressed that the Holy Eucharist is no mere symbol but rather Jesus Christ Himself. He concluded by asking us to ponder for ourselves the question with which he began: Would we be willing to die for Our Lord in the Tabernacle?
Toward midday, I attended a Traditional Latin Mass. The homily given by the priest at this Mass provided a powerful answer to the haunting question of whether one would be willing to die for “what’s in that Tabernacle.”
The celebrant recounted the story famously told time and again by Venerable Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979) concerning a young Chinese Catholic girl’s courageous response to an appalling desecration of the Blessed Sacrament by Communist soldiers who had invaded a small church, arrested the parish priest, and threw all the Hosts from the Tabernacle onto the floor. Each night, at around 3:00 a.m., the girl would sneak into the church through a window, and getting down on her knees, with her face to the floor, she would reverently consume one of the scattered Hosts, touching It only with her tongue. The priest who had been arrested, held a prisoner by the Communists in a house immediately adjacent to the church where from his window he could see into the church, was the sole witness to this child’s amazing and heroic act of faith, which she repeated night after night until she had consumed the very last Host.
It was upon receiving the last Host that she paid the ultimate price for her faith in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament: “As she pressed her tongue to receive the Body of Christ, a shot rang out. A Communist soldier had seen her. It proved to be her Viaticum” (Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1993, p. 120).
Sheer Beauty
Shortly after the Latin Mass that I had attended, there was a large parish Corpus Christi procession that for an hour wended its way through the quiet residential neighborhood that surrounds the church. Everything was done with the utmost reverence and precision.
The pastor carried the Blessed Sacrament in a magnificent Gothic-style monstrance as four laymen bore a large gold-colored canopy over the Holy Eucharist. With rhythmic precision, a layman acolyte rang the sacring bell every few seconds while flanking the pastor as two teenaged altar boys carrying fuming thuribles walked ahead of the entourage, taking turns in turning backward to incense the Blessed Sacrament continually.
The parish choir walked directly behind the canopy, singing Eucharistic hymns as a congregation of over a hundred followed. From where I was in the procession, I could see the seriousness and intensity of the two altar boys who were wielding the thuribles, their demeanor communicating in no uncertain terms Who it was we were walking with and adoring. With clear skies and a refreshing breeze, one could really feel and experience the sheer beauty of what was transpiring.
Along the route there were three stations, each with a makeshift altar, where the procession paused as the pastor set down the monstrance and knelt before the Blessed Sacrament to offer supplications on behalf of the people of the parish. And at each of these stations — the first erected on a parishioner’s driveway, the second on a parishioner’s front lawn, and the third on the front porch of the parish school — the pastor gave us Benediction. I was very impressed by the deep piety of the four men assigned to the canopy, who at these stations would kneel and bow their heads in meditative reflection as the prayers were said.
During a prayer offered for the children of the parish at the third station, a mourning dove lent his voice to our adoration, gently cooing as the pastor prayed. Upon our return to the church, the pastor imparted to us a fourth and final benediction from the altar, bringing the beautiful rite to its conclusion.
Corpus Christi is but once a year, so I just had to avail myself of one more opportunity to take in the splendor and glory of this feast before the day ended. I attended a 4:00 p.m. Traditional Latin Mass with a procession afterward that circled the perimeter of the church before returning inside for Benediction. At this Mass I was near the center aisle, so I was able to see up close the passing of the “Eucharistic cortege,” feeling a really deep sense of awe as Our Lord made His royal way down the aisle in the hands of his priest, accompanied by a large and well-ordered “regiment” of altar boys as well as four children who had received their First Holy Communion at the Mass.
Explaining what the Church’s liturgical feasts meant to him as a Catholic convert from Protestantism, Archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley (1814-1877), the eighth archbishop of Baltimore and nephew of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821), observed:
“The festivals and solemnities of the Church have come in their order, and I have been interested in them in a manner of which, as a Protestant, I never had any idea. The spirit and intention of the Church in celebrating each event in our Savior’s life, etc., as if then taking place, can only be understood by him who is within her pale; there all is really present, near, done for him, while in Protestantism all is past, distant, and indistinct. Oh! How can I ever thank thee sufficiently, oh, my God, for all the benefits and blessings thou hast bestowed upon me?” (journal of Archbishop Bayley, quoted in Sr. M. Hildegarde Yeager, CSC, The Life of James Roosevelt Bayley, First Bishop of Newark and Eighth Archbishop of Baltimore, 1814-1877, Washington, D.C., Catholic University of America Press, 1947, p. 70).
There is a sense in which the Corpus Christi procession is not just the procession of one day in the year. When the Corpus Christi procession concludes, Our Lord is by no means finished with leading us, nor finished with seeking out His lost sheep. Each and every day He longs to traverse all our streets and byways, to enter our homes and places of work. Moreover, He wants us daily to bring Him out spiritually into this dark world of ours, that He might dispel the darkness and make disciples of all nations through us.
The memory of the beautiful sights, sounds, and fragrance of Corpus Christi, the memory of walking together with our fellow Catholics in following our King, the King of glory, will give us the courage to go on: “O grant us help against the foe, / for vain is the help of man! / With God we shall do valiantly” (Psalm 60:11-12).
