Behold Your God: Seeing Jesus on Corpus Christi
By Fr. Philip Nolan, O.P.
“Look!” It’s a simple command that we give and receive all the time. Children point up to a distant airplane, trying to help their friends spot it among the clouds. Teachers instruct their students with exasperation, “Look at the board!” If you’re enjoying a vista with others, you take turns pointing out details: “Look over there, where that mountainside catches the light!” Inviting others to look at what we see is a simple command but an essential one that binds us together in a shared vision.
There are not many direct instructions during the Mass. But one of the few commands given is “Look!” If you don’t remember this moment, that’s because it’s expressed in more elevated language: “Behold!” The priest holds up the Host and directs the congregation, “Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sins of the world.” Behold. Look. See.
On the feast of Corpus Christi, the Church takes this command—Behold!—very seriously. We place the Eucharistic Lord on our altars in monstrances (from monstrare, meaning “to show”), and we spend time in adoration, looking at him. We bring him out onto the streets, processing behind him with prayer and music. We lift him high for blessings. Why? Because we want everyone to look and see what we have seen. Our voices join the voice of the prophet Isaiah, crying out to the world: “Behold your God!” (Is 40:9).
As joyous as the feast of Corpus Christi is and ought to be, there’s a note of pain too. Why? Because so often the Eucharistic Lord is not seen for who he is. Recall the prophetic refrain: “they have eyes to see, but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear” (Ez 12:2). Many people did not recognize Jesus as Lord when he walked the roads of Israel; many today look past him or around him and spend their lives avoiding him. The Lord gives himself to the world as the Bread of Life, and the world rushes past him to grab for the next shiny object. “Love is not loved,” said Saint Francis, and it’s so true.
But Corpus Christi is especially for those with the gift of faith, because we always need reminders of his presence. We can become quite inattentive to him. Whole Masses can go by without us intentionally turning to gaze in faith upon Jesus. Just as we can enter a room without realizing that someone is sitting in a corner chair, so too we can enter our churches without acknowledging the Lord’s presence. Today is a reminder to us: Look!
And when we look at him, we see how far he was willing to go in love for us. Consider this: When the priest commands us to “Behold,” he holds a fractured Host. We see him whom we have pierced (Zech 12:2). The Bread was broken for us. The Lamb was sacrificed for us. And by looking upon him and seeing his willingness to suffer our inattentiveness, our hard hearts begin to break, and the way back to God opens before us.
Beholding the Lord gives us the strength to continue the pilgrimages of our lives. It is fitting, then, that our adoration leads to processions. Benedict XVI noted, “The Corpus Christi procession teaches us that the Eucharist seeks to free us from every kind of despondency and discouragement, wants to raise us, so that we can set out on the journey with the strength God gives us through Jesus Christ.” On Corpus Christi, we look upon our hidden Savior—truly, really present—who closed his eyes in death that he might lead us into life.
Photo: Jeffrey Bruno
