Body and Blood of Christ 2026
Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14-16; 1 Cor 10:16-17; John 6: 51-58
Most of us are familiar with this feast as Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ. It was relatively recently that the Blood was added to the title; the full name of the feast in Latin is now Corpus et Sanguis Christi.
I don’t remember whether the change of title coincided with the restoration of the administering of the chalice to the laity. The latter happened when I was at St. Mary’s, Morecambe, so between 1983 and 1986. Prior to that, from the time of the Second Vatican Council in the early 60s, communion under both kinds, as we call it, had been available to various communities such as religious houses. For instance, university chaplaincies tended to introduce it, and it was well established as the norm in seminaries when I began my studies for the priesthood in 1971.
The offering of the chalice to the laity was suspended during Covid, and it strikes me as a tragedy that many parishes throughout the country have not yet restored it. Many people have pestered the Bishop about it, and he has stated that he wishes it to be restored, but really it is a matter for the Bishops’ Conference, as it is a national, rather than a Diocesan issue. To persuade the Bishops as a body to move in the same direction is rather like raising the Titanic: if it happens at all, it will happen extremely slowly.
It is worth pointing out that nobody is obliged to receive from the chalice. As we know, Jesus is received whole and entire—body, blood, soul, and divinity—under either species alone, but to receive Him under both kinds, under the appearances both of bread and of wine, fulfils more plainly His commands both at the Last Supper and in chapter Six of St. John’s Gospel.
Incidentally, a decree which arrived from Rome a few years ago under the auspices of some tinpot congregation made no sense. Some quango claimed that, at a concelebration, if the priests have received the sacred hosts in their places, they should genuflect when approaching the altar to receive from the chalice. My Dad knew better than that.
After I had become an altar boy, the first time that I subsequently went into the congregation, I genuflected after communion before entering the bench. “No, you don’t do that,” said my father kindly but firmly. “When you have received Communion, you have Jesus inside you. You are a walking tabernacle.” A Lancashire shopkeeper had a better understanding of the Eucharist than Roman redhats.
Enough criticism! To receive Jesus, whether under the appearances of bread alone, or under the appearances of both bread and wine, is something awesome, something beyond human understanding. It lifts us beyond the limits of this world into an intimate relationship with the Son of God, and consequently with the other members of the Blessed Trinity.
Kate was an old lady in the parish of St. Mary’s Morecambe when I was there. She once told me that, after receiving communion, she would say to Jesus “I’ve got you now. You can’t get away from me”. She was right. Our Lord Himself says “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides (or “remains”) in me, and I in them”. It is the high point of our encounter with God, the deepest form of our union with Him. It is the meeting point of us mortals with the loving God.
Some of you will remember the days of early morning Mass when, as an altar server, you had to check if anyone was approaching the altar before Mass began. If they were, you began the Confiteor, because these were people on their way to work. They hadn’t time to stay for Mass, but they longed to have Jesus within them at the beginning of the working day. Bear in mind that they would have gone without breakfast, because fasting before Communion was from midnight, until changed by Pius XII to three hours before Communion, and subsequently to one hour. Even more strikingly, it was for the sake of their faith in the Body and Blood of Christ that the English Martyrs died. Let us, their descendants, value that Body and Blood as they did.
