Archbishop of Sydney

His Eminence,
Cardinal George Pell
Cardinal Priest of the Title of S. Maria Domenica Mazzarello

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Home > Our Archbishop > Homilies 2003 > Article	Printable Version

Corpus Christi

St Mary's Cathedral
Ex 24:3-8; Heb 9:11-15; Mk 14:12-16, 22-26

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
22 June 2003

Today we celebrate one of the strangest and most beautiful truths taught by the Catholic Church community. Mark's gospel today gives us one account of the institution of this ritual. Just before he was crucified, Jesus celebrated the Passover with his apostles, giving them his flesh to eat and his blood to drink under the forms of bread and wine. The bread was broken to prefigure his suffering and death and his blood was described as the blood of the covenant to be poured out for many.

This doctrine is controversial even among good Christians today and it has been controversial since Jesus first announced his intentions to followers. John's gospel recounts Jesus telling his followers that if they do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man or drink His blood, they do not have any religious life in them. Those who do so eat and drink will have eternal life and be raised up body and soul on the last day (6:48-66).

Some of his listeners found this type of talk intolerable, left him and no longer walked with him.

We are used to the idea of receiving Holy Communion with faith in the dignity and ritual of the Eucharistic celebration. But we should spare a thought for those Jews who were unable to accept this teaching, because there is something shocking and surprising in the thought that we all actually consume the Body and Blood of the Son of God. (Corpus Christi is the Latin translation for Body of Christ). We can all become victims to routine, so that the stupendous miracle which occurs at the consecration without the slightest physical change slips by us.

St. Thomas Aquinas who wrote, according to tradition, the Latin prayers and hymns used in today's feast spoke of our senses of sight touch and taste being deceived by this miracle; "visus, tactus gustus fallitur". And it is interesting that many Bible Christians, the people who were first called "fundamentalists", regularly jib at understanding Our Lord's Eucharistic words literally. We should pray for them today that they come to a better and fuller understanding of the redeeming mystery of the Eucharist as we continue to work with them and all other Christians to preach and explain the teaching of Christ and the apostles.

The Eucharist is a true banquet. St. Ephrem from Syria in the fourth century speaks of those who take communion eating "Fire and Spirit", the source of eternal life. Another Middle Eastern saint and martyr, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch who died in 107 A.D. spoke of the Eucharistic bread as a "medicine of immortality, an antidote to death". We could even say that in taking communion we consume and digest the secret of the resurrection, our personal resurrection made possible by the resurrection of Christ Our Lord.

Our celebration of Mass expresses and reinforces our communion with the Saints in heaven, with the Church in heaven. By commemorating the unique saving sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, we join ourselves to the heavenly liturgy and become part of that great multitude from all the ages who cry out in heaven "Salvation belongs to Our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb" (Rev 7.10)

And finally a word or two about the beautiful and increasingly popular Catholic devotion of prayer and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.

The Protestant Reformation presupposed that one could have apostolic faith through apostolic doctrine. The Catholic view is the community preserves the faith - one needs not just doctrine, but a Church in which doctrine takes shape.

There was a famous exchange between a Lutheran scholar and St. Robert Bellarmine, the Jesuit, in the years after the Reformation. The Lutheran argued against Eucharistic adoration on the grounds that Christ meant for the sacrament to be used, not reserved. It was a perfectly legitimate theological point. Bellarmine's response was that the Church had adored the Eucharist for a long time, and there was no good reason to abandon the practice. In fact, once the Lutherans jettisoned adoration, they developed a different Eucharistic doctrine that moved away from the enduring "real presence" of Christ. It's a case in which the tradition of the community had protected the faith.

One can analyse this argument in different ways, but it is a reminder of how fundamental a value the idea of community is for Catholics. In an era in which forces such as nationalism, tribalism, and ideological polarization are eating away at the Church's sense of communion, it's an important testimony. Adoration and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament are a source of grace and vocations, and a useful antidote to prevent any weakening of belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species.

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