Corpus Christi Sunday - Rector's Rambling for June 7, 2026

     

    Today is one last great hurrah before we enter fully into the long season of green vestments known as Trinitytide. 

Today we celebrate Corpus Christi.  The actual Feast Day was Thursday, but it is important enough, like All Saints Day, that we also keep it on the Sunday following.

In the summer of 1990 I experienced my first Solemn High Mass for Corpus Christi.  It was at S. Clement’s Church in Philadelphia.  Three things that I remember most poignantly 36 years later is 1)that it was so hot and humid I felt like I was melting into a puddle, 2) that I had never heard a Mass setting performed at a Mass (it was Shubert’s Mass in G), and  3) that I had never experienced something so sublimely beautiful as the Mass and procession of the Blessed Sacrament that day.   It was a glorious day that deepened my own faith and devotion in a way that continues to this day.

The Sacrament of our Lord’s own Body and Blood is such an important part of the life of Christians.  Jesus said that unless we eat His Flesh and drink His Blood we have no life in us, and he has provided that under the species of bread and wine. (See John Chapter 6 and all the Last Supper narratives in the other three Gospels).

Back in Holy Week we celebrated the institution of this Sacrament at the Last Supper, the night before Jesus died for our sins.  In all the focus on the cross of that week, this very important aspect of our Faith seems to get lost in the shuffle.  The Church, in her wisdom, celebrates this day outside of Lent and Eastertide so that we can kick off the new season with the important reminder of this powerful assurance of Grace!  May we take advantage of if this gift by receiving often...at least once a week if not more!