June 2... Celebration of CORPUS CHRISTI

If we want to understand the meaning of Corpus Christi, the best thing to do is simply to look at the liturgical form in which the Church celebrates and expounds the significance of this feast. Over and above the elements common to all Christian feasts, there are three components especially that constitute the distinctive shape of the way we celebrate this day. First there is what we are doing right now, meeting together around the Lord, standing before the Lord , for the Lord, and thus standing side by side together. Next there is walking with the Lord , the procession. And finally there is the heart and the climax of it, kneeling before the Lord , theadoration, glorifying him and rejoicing in his presence. Standingbefore the Lord, walking with the Lord, and kneeling before the Lord, these three therefore are the constituent elements of this day, and we are now going to reflect on them a little. One Body Standing before the Lord : In the early Church there was an expression for this: statio . And when I mention that term, we touch on the oldest roots of what happens on Corpus Christi and what Corpus Christi is about. At the time when Christianity was spreading out across the world, from the beginning its representatives laid great emphasis on having in each city just one bishop, only one altar. This was supposed to express theunity brought by the one Lord, who embraces us in his arms outstretched on the Cross, transcending all the barriers and limits traced by earthly life, and makes us one Body. And this is the inmost meaning of the Eucharist, that we, receiving the one bread, enter into this one heart and thus become a living organism, the one Body of the Lord. The Eucharist is not a private business, carried on in a circle of friends, in a club of like-minded people, who seek out and get together with those who already suit them; but just as the Lord allowed himself to be crucified outside the city wall, before all theworld, and stretches out his hands to everyone, thus the Eucharist is the public worship of all those whom the Lord calls, irrespective of their personal make-up. It is particularly characteristic of him, as he demonstrated in his earthly life, tohave men of the most diverse groupings, social backgrounds, and personal views brought together in the greater whole of his word and his love. It was characteristic of the Eucharist, then, in the Mediterranean world in which Christianity first developed, for an aristocrat who had found his way into Christianity to sit there side by side with a Corinthian dock worker, a miserable slave, who under Roman law was not even regarded as a man but was treated as chattel. It was characteristic of the Eucharist for the philosopher to sit next to the illiterate man, the converted prostitute and the converted tax collector next to the religious ascetic who had found his way to Jesus Christ. And we can see in the writings of the New Testament how people resisted this again and again, wanted to stay in their own circle, and yet this very thing remained the pointof the Eucharist: gathering together, crossing the boundaries, and leading men through the Lord into a new unity. When Christianity grew in numbers, this exterior form could no longer be maintained in the cities. As early as the time of persecutions, the titular churches in Rome, for instance, were already developing as precursors of the later parishes. Even here, of course, the public nature and the given structure of worship remained, so that people who would otherwise never meet were brought together. But this opening up of relationships within a single space was no longer sufficiently visible. That is why they developed the custom ofthe statio . That means that the pope, as the one bishop of Rome, especially in the course of Lent, leads the worship for the whole of Rome and goes right through each of the titular churches. The Christians meet together, go to the church together, and thus in each particular church the whole becomes visible and touches eachindividual. This basic idea is taken up by Corpus Christi. It is a statio urbis : we open up the parish churches; we open up for ourselves all the odd corners and farthest reaches of this city to be brought together to the Lord, so as to be at one through him. Here,too, we are together irrespective of party or class, rulers and ruled, men who work with their hands and those who do mental work, men of this tendency or that. And this is the essential thing, that we have been brought together by the Lord, that he leads us to meet each other. This moment should issue a call to us to accept one another inwardly, open ourselves up, go to meet each other, that even in the distraction of everydaylife we should maintain this state of being brought together by the Lord.