The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Lectionary: 169 

n those days, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, and being a priest of God Most High, he blessed Abram with these words:
"Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
the creator of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High,
who delivered your foes into your hand."
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

Several years ago, a devout Catholic was driving along a remote country road in southern Louisiana during the closing days of winter. She noticed a stand of trees between rice fields, and a strange configuration of leafless branches and twigs that somehow reminded her of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When she remarked to friends about it, they saw it too. When others drove out to the same spot, they saw it, and soon dozens, and then hundreds of people were heading out to trample the Protestant farmer's levees to honor the Virgin. Busloads came from nearby Texas! 

I drove out to the site with my mother one day and found the exact spot. There was a handful of people there on a weekday morning, reciting the Rosary. But we saw only a row of trees. Some time later a reporter from the Lake Charles American Press asked me about it. I assured her the Mother of God could appear anywhere she wants, at any time she chooses, and doesn't need the Church's approval to do so. But this particular phenomenon had not  been endorsed by any diocese, much less the entire Church. When the spring came the leaves flourished and the apparition went away, never to reappear. 

When the Church celebrated Corpus Christi several weeks later, I reminded my congregation of the event and that we have a far greater sign here. And that is the Body and the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. 

People of every religion and every age look for relics and tactile signs of God's presence and there's no harm in that. But we should be reminded often that these peculiar reminders of the Lord pale before the Church's continual worship of God's presence in our world, a presence which is found in hundreds of thousands of churches throughout the world. 

If another relic of Jesus or the Blessed Mother exists -- like the Shroud of Turin or Veronica's Veil -- its pedigree is suspicious. Where did it come from? How was it not known for all those silent centuries? Who discovered it and why should anyone suppose it's what they claim it is. Invariably, the science disproves it. 

But, in the meanwhile, we the Church gather daily and weekly to honor the Blessed Sacrament. We have never missed a Sunday since the Lord appeared to his disciples in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. Although the Church has been continually disturbed and distressed by dissent and divisions, it never disappeared into some mystical never-never land to reappear in a later centuries, as the druids claim of their cult in the British Isles. Our lineage is straightforward and unchallenged. It first appeared in Jerusalem though its historical roots include the priest and king Melchizedek, nearly two millennia before. It was revealed by the Lord himself on the night before he died.  

When I think of Corpus Christi I recall the annual processions in Louisville's Churchill Downs, when I was a boy. Each year every parish sent men from the Holy Name Societies and Knights of Columbus with their wives and children to keep the feast. We marched from the paddocks, under the track, into the infield, across the track, and into the stands, reciting the rosary as we went. After a fulsome sermon on the Mystery, and Benediction, a monsignor would pronounce with sonorous resonance, 

"...and remember I am with you always, even unto the end of time." 

It's good to hear those words during troubled times, especially when millions prefer even more bizarre signs like conspiracies and Q-Anon.