The Feast of Corpus Christi was instituted as a result of the visions of a nun, St Juliana of Liege, who had a great devotion to the eucharist. She saw the moon with a dark stripe crossing it. She came to believe that this indicated that the church, symbolised by the moon, was lacking a feast day in honour of the Body and Blood of Christ. She spent many years campaigning for such a feast day to be established. This might resonate with us today when most of us are unable to attend Mass and receive Holy Communion. However we know that often when we are lacking something, God supplies it in his own way. When Elijah was hungry, he sent ravens to feed him (Kings 17.1-8) and Jesus Himself fed the five thousand using a child’s loaves and fishes. Today again he feeds us. We are privileged to be able to watch mass through webcam, thus uniting spiritually with our own community (or maybe even another one) and hearing the word of God daily. Our restrictions have helped us focus on the important things in our lives, like family, friends, nature, reading books that would have been too much of a challenge before and doing other things that we never had time for. We have also realised how inderdependent we are and how vital even the most menial jobs are.
We have also seen a renewed thirst for justice, particularly voiced by young people in response to the horrible tragedy in America. Questions are being asked about our basic values, that have lain dormant for decades. Indeed the Lord is feeding us as his Spirit moves throughout our world refreshing and renewing us.
“Amen. Come Lord Jesus!” (Rev 21. 20)