Corpus Christi

The Day of Thanksgiving  for the Institution of Holy Communion

Corpus Christi (the Body and Blood of Christ) is the solemn and joyful commemoration of
and thanksgiving for the institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist.

This day’s observance emphasises the joyous aspect of Holy Thursday.
The Blessed Sacrament is the great gift Our Lord left to us at the Last Supper. Since its institution, the Eucharist has been the source and summit of Christian worship. In this great sacrament God feeds his people and strengthens them in holiness.
‘O banquet most precious! O banquet most admirable! O banquet overflowing with every spiritual delicacy! Can anything be more excellent than this repast, in which not the flesh of goats and heifers, as of old, but Christ the true God is given us for nourishment?’ [Thomas Aquinas]

Historically, the frequency of receiving Holy Communion has varied: daily [Acts 2. 46]; on the first day of the week (Sunday) [Acts 20. 7]; Cyprian, Jerome and others mention that the liturgy is celebrated on other days as well. This continued until the early Middle Ages when reception declined to a few times a year. Later the Council of Trent (1545) urged that reception should be frequent.

In the Church of England there is the following rubric at the end of The Holy Communion service in the Book of Common Prayer (1662): ‘And note, that every Parishioner shall communicate at the least three times in the year, of which Easter to be one’. After the Reformation Holy Communion was celebrated perhaps only once a month and this practise persists in some churches. In the nineteenth century the Oxford Movement encouraged more frequent celebrations and the liturgy became central to worship.

At St George’s we have inherited this approach to the Sacrament.

Lord Jesus Christ,
we thank you that in this wonderful sacrament
you have given us the memorial of your passion:
grant us so to reverence the sacred mysteries
of your body and blood
that we may know within ourselves
and show forth in our lives the fruits of your redemption;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Jesus said,
‘I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,
and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’