Mysterium Christi: A Meditation on Ascension, Whitsunday and the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament

'Let us forever adore the Most Holy Sacrament!'

The Feast of Corpus Christi, that is, the Festival of the Body and Blood of Christ, is a fitting complement to and fulfilment of the great Feasts which we shall celebrate the two weeks before, the mysteries of Our Lord's glorious Ascension into heaven and the descent of God the Holy Ghost upon the Holy Catholic Church; in every offering of the Holy Sacrifice, which contains what the Book of Common Prayer describes as 'Holy Mysteries,' the True Body and Blood of Christ under the form of bread and wine, these events of salvation history are made-present to us here and now as continual, perpetual realities to be experienced and lived anew.

The Feast of Corpus Christi reinforces the divinely-revealed truth of the Eucharistic Change in the Elements, the permanent, abiding, objective and substantial presence of the Body and Blood of Christ under the species of bread and wine in the Blessed Sacrament. Our Lord remains under the veil of the Eucharistic Elements to be received, loved and adored.

In the Eucharist, we are drawn into the heavenly tabernacle as the veil between time and eternity is lifted, and we are carried into the eternal priesthood of the Lord Jesus, who, now in His risen and glorified humanity, presents Himself to the Father forever as our perfect and eternal Sacrifice. Every Eucharist is a literal union of the Church with the Act of Intercession of our heavenly and ascended Lord. In the Mass, the central and supreme act of Christian worship, we ascend with Christ and reign with Him in heavenly places, making intercession with and in Him for all creation. So too, in every Mass, at the Invocation of the Word and Holy Spirit in the Prayer of Consecration, called the Epiclesis, the Holy Spirit Himself descends upon the holy gifts to consecrate them into the living Body and Blood of Christ and upon the Church to make of her an energised, recreated, and transformed People. The Body of Christ in heaven makes the Church the Body of Christ on earth through the Body of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Every Eucharist is a reproduction of Pentecost, of the fiery Gift of the Holy Spirit.

Consider these words of Dr John Macquarrie: 'Just as the first appearing of Jesus was like the rising of the sun over a darkened world, so today when the Host is lifted up either in the Mass itself or in Benediction, it is like the rising of the sun upon us and we receive the radiance and warmth of God's blessing through him whom he has sent.' The Lord Himself invites you to come and adore Him in the Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood, the manifestation of His loving presence and mercy.