Sermon Blog
The Priestly Office
June 1, 2024
The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi, is celebrated the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. In many dioceses the celebration of this feast is transferred to the following Sunday, which falls this year on June 2, 2024. St. John Henry Newman didn’t compose any poems specifically about this feast, but he did compose a beautiful translation entitled, “The Priestly Office” which focuses on the Blessed Sacrament and its fruits. The poem is subtitled, “From St. Gregory Nazianzen” since it is one of Newman’s inspired translations, here from the Greek of this early Church Father. Translations from ancient languages into English are considered poems in their own right because of the artistry and skill required to render a poetic line from one language to another. Here is the poem in its entirety:
The Priestly Office (From St. Gregory Nazianzen)
IN service o’er the Mystic Feast I stand;
I cleanse Thy victim-flock, and bring them near
In holiest wise, and by a bloodless rite.
O fire of Love! O gushing Fount of Light!
(As best I know, who need Thy pitying Hand)
Dread office this, bemired souls to clear
Of their defilement, and again made bright.
Oxford.1834.
Here, the celebration is called a “mystic feast” which indeed it is, beyond all human understanding. Earlier in Church history the term “mystic or mystical” referred to the Holy Eucharist. Only more recently was it applied to the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.These two uses are, however, intimately related as we shall see below.
The poem explains what is taking place using compact language: those who participate are cleansed and made more holy by the work of the priest’s hand, a “dread” office, or an act which inspires awe. We are reminded here of the very high calling of priests and the need to pray each day for their faithfulness.
The sacrifice of the altar as a re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary is a “bloodless rite,” but nevertheless, like that sacrifice, it too is a “fire of Love,” and a “Fount of Light” which will clear the “defilement” from those receiving the sacrament, the “bemired souls,” that is, the sinful communicants.
The Catechism of Catholic Church teaches that “The principal fruits of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus which preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism; it separates from sin and strengthens charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life; and it preserves from future mortal sins, uniting all the faithful in one body – the Church.”
As a side note, it is evident from various texts that St. John Henry admired St. Gregory Nazianzen. For instance, he not only wrote an original poem about him, but also mentions him in Discourse 12 of the Discourses to Mixed Congregations, as follows from: “The Prospects of the Catholic Missioner” :
“In such a time as this, did the great Doctor, St. Gregory Nazianzen, he too an old man, a timid man, a retiring man, fond of solitude and books, and unpractised in the struggles of the world, suddenly appear in the Arian city of Constantinople; and, in despite of a fanatical populace, and an heretical clergy, preach the truth, and prevail—to his own wonder, and to the glory of that grace which is strong in weakness, and is ever nearest to its triumph when it is most despised.”
No doubt our beloved English saint identified with this saint of the early church, whom together with St. Basil he considered “special champions of the Catholic creed,” as he wrote in one of his Historical Sketches, “Church of the Fathers” (Historical Sketches, vol. 2).
And so on the Feast of Corpus Christi, as we receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord and Savior, we can remember that this mystic feast cleanses us and also unites us with the whole Church, with St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, St. John Henry Newman, and all the saints, especially the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph.
The moving hymn “The Church’s One Foundation” composed by Samuel John Stone in the 1860s expresses this beautiful truth:
Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won:
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we,
Like them, the meek and lowly,
In love may dwell with Thee.
It is through the Precious Body and Blood of Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit unites us in mystical communion as God’s children.
