As we approach the Feast of Corpus Christi (transferred) this coming Sunday, we might consider the great Anglican priest and poet George Herbert’s poem “Love (III).” In it, Herbert describes the inner angst of a Christian sinner being invited to feast with God. The sinner (who seems autobiographical to some extent) finds every excuse to refuse God’s gift to sit down and eat with him. I’m not worthy. I’m unkind. I’m ungrateful. I have marred God’s image inside me. I must serve, not eat. With each excuse, God offers a loving rejoinder about how his image can’t be extricated even from the sinner. And finally, God dismisses all the sinner’s excuses with the clencher of a line: “You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.” No excuses, says God who is Love. I’m offering you a gift, and you must receive it.
Herbert’s poem reveals what all of us undoubtedly feel. To some extent, we must feel unworthy to come to Communion each Sunday because of the many ways we’ve messed up since last Sunday. We’re all too aware of how extraordinary Christ’s gift of himself in the Eucharist is, and so we may be tempted to find any excuse to avoid receiving his gift. The prayer book tells us that to receive the Eucharist, “[i]t is required that we should examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people” (p. 860). This is a tall order. We will never achieve it perfectly in this life, but it’s what we should seek after diligently. And God knows this, and our desire to achieve such a state of charity and reconciliation pleases God. There are no excuses to shun my gift, says God. Come and taste my meat.
Herbert’s “Love (III)” also highlights an insidious sin that can crop up within our souls. Refusing to receive God’s gifts, whether the Eucharist or any other gift, can easily be a way of refusing to let God into our souls, trying to shield ourselves from God, as if that could work. It simply ends up hurting us. The fact is that to properly receive the Sacrament of the Altar by being in charity with others demands that we do something about our states of estrangement or enmity with others. And refusing the gift because we’re unworthy can be a way of letting ourselves off the hook. It can be a way of trying to control the gift that only God can control. Indeed, the definition of a gift is something to be received, not controlled.
This Sunday, with the permission of our bishop, we will use the propers from the prayer book “Of the Holy Eucharist” and observe the Feast of Corpus Christi transferred from yesterday, its proper feast day. This is our parish’s custom and is the custom of most Anglo-Catholic parishes, and Roman Catholic churches observe the feast on Sunday as well. This feast reminds us that all of life is a gift, and this is epitomized in the Eucharist. But the Eucharistic gift is not simply to be received. By it, we are to be changed into the very Body that we receive. And by receiving God’s gift, we are to go into the world and honor Christ’s Real Presence in all whom we meet.
At the end of Sung Mass, we will process the Blessed Sacrament through the church, followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. But as we adore in this sacred devotion, remember that the Body of Christ is not intended, first and foremost, to gaze upon. It’s a gift of heavenly food, meant to be consumed. The physical act of eating should not be underestimated; indeed, it’s at the very heart of the gift of this sacrament. We find our Christian identity in our bodies by virtue of the Incarnation, and therefore, to abide in Christ, “that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us” as the prayer book puts it (p. 337), we must sit down and eat him. This is no less scandalous in our own day than it was in Jesus’s own day (see John 6). Gazing upon the Blessed Sacrament is a worthy means of adoration of Christ’s presence in the Eucharistic Bread, but Eucharistic adoration flows out of the act of consuming the Body of Christ. Incarnational living demands that we take Christ’s Body into our selves and then into the world. The objective presence of Christ in the Sacrament changes us and heals us in ways we can never understand. And then transformed by heavenly grace, we are to go out into the streets, our workplaces, our schools, and our neighborhoods to treat every person as if they were the Sacrament itself. There’s no time like the present to do so. Every day the image of Christ is slain in gun violence, and it’s daily abused in hateful, racist, anti-Semitic, transphobic, homophobic, and bigoted rhetoric that is being accepted with terrifying alacrity. With each Mass, our reception of the Sacrament is a radical call to honor the Real Presence of Christ in all whom we meet, including ourselves.
On Sunday, come to the feast, unworthy though you and I may be. Let it be a challenge for us to amend our ways and turn again to God. But let us sit down and eat. Love bids us welcome. Love is offering a gift. It is a gift that can’t be refused.
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle