Sermon by the Revd Trey Garland for the Feast of Corpus Christi, June 4, 2026

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

It is an honor to be here this evening.

I'd like to thank Canon MacDonald Radcliffe for allowing me and inviting me into this pulpit.

I bring you greetings from your brothers and sisters at your sister parish down in Dorchester, some of whom came up this evening.

Why are you here?

Every Sunday, every time we celebrate the Holy Eucharist, we come.

We're present.

We do the things that we're taught to do, say the right things, kneel at the right times.

But why are you here?

Father Martin Thornton, probably the greatest Anglican ascetic theologian that we've ever had, in his book A Joyful Heart, says, There is a great Anglican phobia of the supernatural.

How many of us truly have prepared our hearts and minds to come here this evening and to receive the most precious body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ?

The collect for tonight does not say a memory, a symbol, a sign, but grant us so to venerate the sacred mysteries of his body and blood.

For centuries, and the canon of the Eucharist, that long prayer after the Sursum Corda and the preface, there was no such thing as an epiclesis.

The epiclesis is what we say called the invocation of the Holy Spirit, where we asked the Holy Spirit to come down over the bread and the wine.

But for centuries it didn't exist because there was an understanding of the priesthood that all priests celebrating the Mass stand in persona Christi in the person or place of Christ.

Now, please don't think that any of us think that we're Jesus walking on this earth, but rather we are vehicles by which our Lord operates.

And so when we say, This is my body, this is my blood, it is.

There is a venerable Anglo-Catholic tradition at the elevation to say, My Lord and my God, to acknowledge Jesus Christ truly present and his body and blood.

St.

Paul in his epistle this evening reminds us that we must consider carefully if we are worthy to receive the sacrament and what exactly it is we are receiving.

There's a Russian theologian at the Orthodox seminary close to one of our seminaries in New York, and he said, I have absolutely no problem believing that bread can become the body of Christ.

He then held up one of our communion hosts and he said, I do, however, have trouble believing that this is bread.

And any clergy member or any altar guild member that has had to consume vast amounts of hosts will understand that completely.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in his catechetical lecture talks about the Eucharist and about how we are to treat it, that it is more precious than gold, more precious than gemstones, more precious than anything else on this earth.

And we are to treat it as such.

And at the end of his catechetical lecture, he says, But do not forget the prayers.

That is to say, do not forget after you receive the Eucharist to stop and give thanks to Christ and to the triune God for the bounty of grace that you have just received.

As the saying goes, the first person to leave Mass early was Judas.

Don't be like Judas.

Thomas Akempus in the imitation of Christ reminds clergy that there if we took an entire year to prepare our souls, our minds, and our bodies to celebrate Mass, we still would not be worthy.

And he tells the laity the same thing.

We have to be incredibly mindful of what, of who we are receiving.

If we don't, we possibly take it to our detriment.

The sacrament is not something to be taken lightly.

It is the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is a fountain of grace, a fountain of blessing that God allows us to have any time we attend Mass.

And we are to be mindful of that, both in preparing to come to church and saying our prayers right before receiving.

But Thomas Akempis also says, you must be mindful of yourself, your mind, your body, and your actions after you receive.

For you have received something so precious, something not even the angels get to partake of.

Tonight we celebrate and venerate these most precious gifts which Jesus Christ gives to you and to me, allowing us to partake of grace, of blessing, of healing, of spiritual strengthening.

We should not look at the mass as the ultimate action, but rather we look at it as a filling station, preparing us to go into the world and to fulfill the commandment to go and to make disciples and to baptize them.

Tonight we give thanks that God makes Jesus Christ manifest in this most precious sacrament, and that you and I, those sinners, broken, unhealthy, are called to receive it.

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.

We should be aware of this and know this.

We should also be keenly aware that God's love for us was so great and so outrageous that he sent his son to become incarnate, to die on the cross for you and for me.

And we remember that sacrifice, and we remember what Christ has given when we partake of his most precious body and blood.

And going forward, let us always be mindful of this great gift that you and I get to partake of because God loves you and loves me more than we can ask or imagine.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Amen.