Sermon at Parish Mass, Corpus Christi 2017

Genesis 14.18-20

1 Corinthians 11.23-26

John 6.51-58

Before I was ordained I attended a church called All Saints Margaret Street, in the West End of London. It maintains a high standard of Anglo-Catholic practice and liturgy. One of the customs there is that, if someone cannot manage the steps up to the altar, the Blessed Sacrament is carried to them in their place at the time of communion. And when this is done, the people all kneel, in silence. No-one has told them to do this, they just do it anyway. It is a profoundly impressive act of wordless piety.

The story is told there of a member of the congregation who brought her friend, who was not a believer, to High Mass, to see what she made of it. Well she didn’t respond at the time, but years later, as she lay dying in hospital, that memory kept coming back to her: the people kneeling, in silence, as the Blessed Sacrament was carried into their midst. And as the image would not go away, she finally gave in, and called the Chaplain, and received the Blessed Sacrament before she died.

We have seen great tragedies recently, terrorist outrages and the terrible disaster at Grenfell Tower. As the Queen has said, “it is difficult to escape a very sombre national mood”. Amid so much that reminds us of the fragility and transience of life, we instinctively seek a life that is more than this life.

Down the ages countless souls have found that life hidden in the Eucharist, in the sacred host and the chalice. Scorned by the world, despised by its enemies, the secret source of life in the Eucharist continues undiminished through darkness and storm, the beating heart of the Church’s life, our bread for our pilgrimage, our food for eternity.

We do not have to understand or analyse – how could we? These are divine mysteries whose depth we can never exhaust. But, like the woman dying in the hospital, we know that here is what we need, more than anything in this world. Although the teaching of Jesus seems scandalous and incomprehensible to some, experience and belief teach us that here in the Eucharist is the eternal life we seek and need.

Through this food and drink we receive eternal life, for by it we abide in Jesus and he in us, and he abides in the Father who is himself life inexhaustible. Here is the bread of eternal life, the “medicine of immortality”, as St Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, cheerfully called it, while on his way to be eaten by lions in the Colosseum.

So we celebrate with joy and bring the best that we can to this, the one act of worship that Jesus gave to his church. This is the highest act of worship, for it is the worship that the Eternal Son offers to the Father, in which we participate. It is the world’s salvation, the perpetual memorial and making effective in every time and place of Christ’s offering of himself. As the prayer over the offerings on Maundy Thursday puts it, “as often as we celebrate the memorial of this sacrifice, the work of our redemption is accomplished”.

We do not do this for ourselves alone, but for the whole world. We offer material gifts of bread and wine, the work of human hands, and by that offering the whole world is embraced in Christ’s redeeming work. So we rightly offer the Eucharist not only for ourselves, but for others, those in all kinds of needs, the living and the departed.

Our celebration today expresses our belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which is the belief of the Church in every age. Even Luther never doubted it. Without the Real Presence the Eucharist would be no more than a subjective act, like looking at an old picture or reading a historical novel: not actually an engagement with something real, but a mere reminder or commemoration of it.

We know that we cannot save ourselves, and something that happens simply in our minds cannot save us either. Jesus has to save us, and he does that in and through the Eucharist that he gave us, in which he is really, truly and substantially present. If Jesus isn’t in the Eucharist, he can’t save us through it. That he does, is assured us by the Prayer Book Catechism which tells us that the Eucharist is “generally [that is, universally] necessary for salvation”. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood”, says Jesus, “you have no life in you”.

And if there are those who turn aside from this teaching, who demand “how can this man give us his flesh to eat?”, we can answer, firstly, that this man is God, so he can do it, and, secondly, that he is the Truth, so we believe him when he says it.

The special rites we celebrate today, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction, are not indeed essential to the Eucharist. But they are part of the way in which our celebration and joy at this great gift overflows. This is a particular development in the Western Church, where things tend to be done more visibly than in the East.

It is a beautiful instinct that has led the Western Church to fashion the monstrance, for exposition of the Sacrament, in the form of a star or sunburst. Because here truly is the Daystar from on high, the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus himself, hidden under the outward signs of bread and wine for our salvation.

I recently read the novel “Laurus”, by Eugene Vodolazkin. Set in mediaeval Russia, though with some fluidity of time and space, it is an age of great peril and uncertainty, murder, plague, famine, violence and sudden death. But also an age of faith. Laurus is the life story of a man told in phases that pass from sinful youth, through penitence, to the wanderings of a holy fool and pilgrim, and finally that of a hermit living in a cave, with a tame bear for company.

The hermit gained a reputation for sanctity, and many people came to him for prayer, spiritual guidance, and healing. A rumour went round that he kept in his cave a supply of the elixir of life, the magical potion that confers immortality. And the more he denied this as nonsense, the more people believed it.

Eventually he gave in, admitted that he had the elixir of life, and told everyone to gather the next day, and bring their friends. A huge crowd assembled, anxious and jostling to get to the front, wanting to claim their dose of the magical elixir before it ran out.

The hermit emerged from his cave, beckoned everyone to follow, and led them through the forest, to the nearest church. He entered just as the morning service was reaching its climax, and the priest appeared before the altar carrying the Eucharist for Holy Communion. The hermit stood in front of the crowd, and pointed to the chalice. “The elixir of life is in there”, he said, “and there is enough for everyone”.