Brothers and Sisters, today – the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi – we will be processing with the Blessed Sacrament from our Cathedral to St Peter’s church in the Castlegate. This will follow our Mass. This is surely a first in the history of the Catholic community here since the Reformation of the 16th c. So we are making history. More importantly we are giving public expression to our faith and love and hope, and our care for all the people of this City.
We know how law and culture in our society so often seem to be uncoupling themselves from what is right and good, we know how perilous the international situation is, how many social and economic problems there are. Let us then reaffirm our faith and our love.
Todays’ readings naturally focus on the Eucharist. In the 1st reading, from Genesis, a mysterious ancient figure appeared, a priest and king of Salem (later Jerusalem), with the sonorous name of Melchizedek. Carrying bread and wine, he offers a sacrifice and food and drink in the presence of Abraham. Here’s what’s called a “type”, a prophecy, a trailer if you like, of our Eucharist. The Psalm picked up on this. In the second reading St Paul reminds the Christians of Corinth of how Jesus instituted the Eucharist before his death and commanded the apostles to repeat what he had done. In the Gospel just proclaimed Jesus multiplies bread and fish for a hungry crowd in Galilee. It’s another foreshadowing of the Eucharist. Everything’s converging here.
Geographically, place-wise, our readings reference Jerusalem, Greece, Galilee. What happened there is now fulfilled here in Aberdeen and in every church throughout the world. Timewise, what was foreshadowed in the Old Testament, anticipated in Jesus’ public life, and instituted in the Last Supper years ago is now, in this Jubilee year 2025, celebrated daily by the Catholic priesthood. And so the eucharistic generosity of God is multiplied in space and time. God feeds his people with himself. He enters our place and our time. It was in a “desolate place”, the Gospel says, that Jesus fed the crowd. What’s this desolate place? It’s our world. It’s our hearts. This is where our Melchizedek, our King and High Priest, Jesus Christ, comes from the heavenly Jerusalem in every Mass. Through the ministry of priests, he takes bread and wine, gives thanks, makes them his Body and Blood and gives them to his disciples. He rises in bread and revels in wine, as a poet nicely says. And we can eat, drink and be satisfied.
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Today’s Collect is special. Almost always, Collects – the Opening Prayers – are directed to God the Father through his Son. This one is directed immediately to Jesus himself, addressed as God himself. Is that a sign how close he feels to us in this Sacrament?
And the Sacrament is called “wonderful”. No wonder! This feast is given us lest we forget, lest we take the wonderful for granted. It’s to rekindle our amazement.
And the Collect asks that we may “revere” this Sacrament. May we have this grace of reverence, outwardly and inwardly, in body and soul, individually and all together! Let’s always approach Holy Communion with faith and prayer and love, always repentant and absolved beforehand of any grave sins, “in the state of grace” as far as we can judge. Fire is in this bread. Let’s focus ourselves and our children. If we do not receive Holy Communion, we may express our faith and desire by asking for a blessing. The Lord sees our hearts.
Lastly, the Collect asks that “we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption.” We will become what we receive – ourselves and our community a life-giving sacrament of Christ!
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A procession is a perfect image of who we are and of who the Church is. We’re an army on the march through life, pilgrims of hope heading for heaven, led by Jesus. And on our march, on our pilgrimage, the Lord goes with us. He’s our companion and our contemporary. Recently, celebrating Confirmation, I met a young man who was taking the name “Enoch” – unusually. “Why?” I asked. “Because Enoch ‘walked with God’”, he replied, quoting Genesis 5:25, “and that’s what I want to do”. Our procession might be called “walking with God.”
And on life’s “walk”, Christ leads us and feeds us. St Thomas calls the Eucharist “the food of travellers”, and the last Communion we receive is called Viaticum, meaning literally, “on the way with you”. In the Eucharist, the risen Lord, we might say, becomes the spiritual protein, the carbs, the fats, vitamins, minerals and liquid we need; he provides the calories and energy we need for the most vital journey of all, following him en route to the Father. Through the Eucharist, he involves himself in our thoughts and feelings, in what happens to us, in the highs and lows of our life. He turns our wayfaring into God-faring. If we receive Holy Communion regularly, he “seeps” into us; he “dyes himself” into us, like a bright colour dying drab cloth (imagery owed to Malcolm Guite). “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him”, says Jesus: there’s a coming together, a blending. “It is no longer I who live”, says St Paul, “but Christ who lives in me.” We become who we eat and drink. And we become one in him – for others, his Body given, his Blood shed.
Those of you who know the Lord of the Rings will remember the lembas, the wafer-thin elvish bread that sustains the hobbits on their epic journey. It puts heart into them “and a more wholesome sort of feeling too”. This is the Eucharist. This is the Church’s century-long experience.
Brothers and sisters, today we worship Christ truly present in the elements of bread and wine. We remember the priesthood which keeps the memorial of Christ’s Passion alive in the world. We rekindle our wonder and our reverence. And we will profess our faith in public, praying that the truth and goodness of Christ may shine ever brighter in our lives and our city, and many, many be drawn to him. Amen.
St Mary’s Cathedral, 22 June 2025
