Sunday after Trinity Sunday--Solemnity of Corpus Christi

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ celebrates the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. This is the faith of the Church and it always has been. Jesus states in the Gospel of John: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” Jn 6:53.

Early Christians were accused of cannibalism, which can “potentially be linked to [a]… principal Christian ritual, the celebration of the Eucharist. During this part of the service, the ‘body of Christ’ is consumed and his ‘blood’ drunk.” However, the Church Fathers confirmed the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. For example, St. Justin Martyr wrote: “For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food that has been made into the Eucharist by the eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnated Jesus.”

The Church eventually called the change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus transubstantiation. This means that the appearance, taste, texture, smell still remains that of bread and wine, but the reality, or substance, changes into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus. It is no longer bread and wine, but Jesus! The Solemnity of Corpus Christi reaffirms our belief in what Jesus taught and celebrated and passed on to us.

September 19--St. Januarius, Bishop and Martyr

If you like weird stories, here is a doozy! St. Januarius’s blood liquifies up to 18 times each year for the past 600 years! Keep in mind that St. Januarius has been dead since A.D. 305, when he was martyred under the Great Persecution of the emperor Diocletian, the last and worst persecution in the age of the martyrs. His blood has been kept in a reliquary and routinely liquifies on certain days, including his feast day of September 19. When Pope Francis visited Naples in 2015 the blood liquified, the first time that has happened in the presence of a pope in over 150 years. According to Neapolitans, when St. Januarius’s blood does not liquify on the usual days it is a sign of trouble to come. So why is liquification unusual? The fact of St. Januarius’s blood changing form is scientifically inexplicable, PERIOD! 

St. Januarius was a bishop and martyr, which makes him amazing enough! However, because of the constant liquification of his blood, or lack thereof, he is in the news quite a bit. We may not really know about him, except for this amazing miracle. What does this mean for us today? Perhaps it is to remind us of another miracle concerning blood.

There is a miracle that occurs every day throughout the world in every Catholic church: the transubstantiation of the bread and wine offered at the sacrifice of the Mass into the Body and Blood of Jesus. This miracle is seen and experienced by faithful. It is more amazing than the liquification of St. Januarius’s blood. We get to receive Jesus—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—every time we receive the Eucharist. We honor St. Januarius for his witness and his miracle, but we worship our Lord, Jesus Christ for his great love and sacrifice for our salvation.