Corpus Christi - Rector's Rambling for June 6, 2021

     

Thursday Morning Benediction

Before we get too deeply into the long “green” season of Trinitytide (The Sundays after Trinity, until November 28) we have one last HURRAH, in the celebration of Corpus Christi.

Since April 4, we have had Easter and Eastertide, Ascension and Ascensiontide, Whitsunday and Whitsuntide, and last week’s Trinity Sunday.  It is a great period of celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord and all the events the weeks afterward, summed up in the great mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Today is a bit of a throwback to Holy Week, as we celebrate the last Supper of our Lord, Maundy Thursday, moved to today.  It was on that day before our Lord died that He instituted the Sacrament of His own Body and Blood, under the species of the bread and wine of the Passover Meal.  “Do this in remembrance of me” he commanded, and so we do every Sunday and most other days of the week as well.

With all the busy activity of Holy Week, focusing primarily on the Cross and then empty tomb that week, the events of Maundy Thursday get lost in the mix.  So the Church, in her wisdom, appoints yet another opportunity to celebrate this great occasion.  The feast day is technically on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and the celebration extends to Sunday as well.  And many will remember when we had a grand Thursday Evening celebration of the feast with choir and even one year an orchestra.  Perhaps that can be revived again in thanksgiving for the end of the pandemic and a return to the (new) normal of wide open public worship.

Great hymns today, and a wonderful reminder of why we do what we do every celebration of the Holy Communion.  We give great thanks to Jesus for nourishing us in this Sacrament of His own Body and Blood!