Archbishop Viganò / “Pignus futurae gloriae”. Homily on the solemnity of Corpus Christi
Se nascens dedit socium,
Convescens in edulium,
Se moriens in pretium,
Se regnans dat in præmium.
By being born he gave himself as one like us,
at the banquet he gave himself as food,
in death he gave himself as the price of redemption,
in reigning he gives himself as our reward.
Hymn. Verbum supernum prodiens ad Mat.
The office of Corpus Christi was composed by Saint Thomas Aquinas. A pious tradition holds that the Doctor Angelicus transcribed the texts by placing his ear to the tabernacle, almost as if receiving dictation from the Eucharistic Lord. The entire Liturgy of this day is a Hymn to the Most Blessed Sacrament, inextricably linked to the Sacrifice of the Mass and to the Priesthood.
In the antiphon O sacrum convivium, Aquinas defines the Most Blessed Sacrament – and implicitly with it, precisely, the Holy Mass in which it is consecrated – as pignus futuræ gloriæ, pledge of future glory.
In what way is the Most August Sacrament of the Altar a pledge, or binding promise, of the eternal glory of Heaven? First of all in making truly present, under the Eucharistic species, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Ascension of the Savior did not deprive us of His presence on earth: Non derelinquam vos orphanos (Jn 14:18), He said to the Apostles. And the promise is reiterated to Peter and the Apostles along with the Non prævalebunt: Ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus usque ad consummationem sæculi (Mt 18:20). And where could we find the Lord every day, if not in the tabernacle of our churches? It is there that the Divine Prisoner has chosen to be: exposed to the adoration of the faithful, but also to the neglect of His Ministers or even to the profanation of the wicked. Often unfindable, hidden in a secluded corner, almost as if the servants were ashamed of their Master in front of tourists or incredulous people who consider the House of God as a museum, a place where one can absentmindedly photograph the splendors of sacred art without understanding for Whom they were made and what moved souls to those heights of beauty.
But if there are many abandoned churches in which the Eucharistic Lord does not receive the honors that are due to Him, there are also many churches in which many good souls adore the Blessed Sacrament, visit Him, and open their hearts to Him for their own and others’ concerns. There are also some priests – among many who spend more time on the Internet than praying – who remain before the tabernacle, where they recite the Breviary or the Rosary, or where they entrust the souls of their flock to the Lord. If we were to remain and observe from the sidelines these blessed oases of faith and charity, we might be surprised to see many young people kneeling, many men and people who from their outward appearance would not even be said to be Christians, but who by some unfathomable mystery of Grace are close to the Lord, are not ashamed to come to pray to Him, even just to “keep Him company”, as any person would do with a friend.
The crisis we are going through is not the first that the Holy Church has faced. Satan has already tried to attack the Blessed Sacrament, the Mass, and the Priesthood in the past. Let us think of the thousands of martyrs killed for their Faith in the Holy Sacrifice or in the Real Presence, of the Protestant heresy, of the so-called “reforms” of Luther and other heresiarchs, always centered on the Mass, to reduce it to a fraternal agape meal, a supper and not the Sacrifice of Our Lord. Let us not be surprised, therefore, if the Evil One proposes a plan that has already proven to work in the past: the attack will always be on the Mass, on the Real Presence, and on the Catholic Priesthood. Because the Mass and the Eucharist are a καθῆκον to the coming of the Antichrist. The last persecution by the Antichrist, in fact, will occur when – according to Daniel’s prophecy – the everlasting sacrifice will be abolished and the abomination of desolation will be put in place (Dan 12:11).
If we have not yet reached the end of time, we certainly owe it to the intercession of the Virgin Mary and all the Saints in Heaven, to the prayers of the Souls in Purgatory on our behalf, but also – and I would say above all – to many souls who on this poor earth adore and honor the Most Blessed Sacrament; and to the priests who make Him present in the Holy Mass and administer Him to the faithful. Here is the pledge of future glory that already anticipates in this world the perennial Liturgy of Heaven, because the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, both in the splendor of a basilica and in the secrecy of an attic, opens the doors of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Upon every altar the Holy Spirit descends, while the Most Holy Trinity ratifies that Sacrifice and pours out Its Infinite Graces upon the Church. The entire angelic Court adores the Man-God in every consecrated Host, in every chalice that is offered.
And when Faith wavers among the faithful or even among the Ministers, when heresy comes to sow division and death among the ranks of believers, when disbelief or indifference take the place of fervor and devotion toward the Most August Sacrament, then Providence – instead of striking with lightning the wicked who profane the Eucharistic Species – performs new miracles, shows the living Flesh of the Savior, the throbbing muscle of the Heart, the Blood of the sacrificed Lamb. The Eucharistic Sanctuaries of the whole world testify how the Majesty of God continues to multiply the wonders and signs that prove the Divine Origin of the Church and that make not only credible, but to be believed the Revelation of Christ of which she is the guardian.
Not far from here, the famous miracle of Bolsena took place in 1263, during which a Bohemian priest, while celebrating Mass, saw blood flow from the Host during the Consecration, staining the corporal. The Cathedral of Orvieto, built in 1290, was built precisely to house this miracle.
From the miracle of Rome in 595 (where during a mass celebrated by Pope Gregory the Great in the Basilica of Santa Pudenziana, the species of bread were transformed into flesh and blood) up until today, the Church has recognized more than one hundred miracles as authentic: think of those of Lanciano, Ferrara, Rimini, Alatri, Siena, Florence, Paris, Amsterdam, Krakow, Brussels and many others… On each occasion, devotion to the Holy Eucharist was reborn with new vigor, the Faith of the people was reawakened, and souls returned to God.
In the earthly pilgrimage through the desert of a hostile world, man needs to nourish himself with a celestial Viaticum, a supersubstantial food that strengthens the soul against the assaults of the Evil One: without the Bread of Angels we are inexorably condemned to die spiritually of hunger and thirst. Today our churches are mostly deserted and abandoned: decades of irreverent rites and reckless innovations have alienated the faithful, disaffected priests, and frustrated Vocations. That perennial Sacrifice, gradually adulterated and disfigured, is less and less celebrated, and already there are those who – after having provoked the crisis of Vocations – suggest instituting deaconesses, thus attempting to open the impossible path to the Priesthood for women. Some bishops, furthermore, with the complicit silence of Rome, have succeeded in effectively prohibiting – abusively so – the centuries-old practice of receiving Communion on the tongue while kneeling, imposing on those who believe in the Real Presence the irreverence of those who sacrilegiously deny it. And the restrictions of Traditionis Custodes make clear, even after the election of Pope Leo, the hostility of many bishops to the ancient rite: it is in fact too Catholic to be able to enter the great bazaar of Vatican II along with the Amazonian rites or those of the Neocatechumenals or the Charismatics. And it is too Catholic to believe in the Real Presence, to adore God in the Most Holy Eucharist, to prostrate oneself before the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the monstrance, to profess faith in the miracle of Transubstantiation, to recognize the need to be in God’s grace to approach Holy Communion. Much simpler to have a mass that also pleases Protestants; a “common priesthood” that also allows women to access the ordained ministry and that satisfies the woke religion in terms of gender equality…
The hymn Adoro te devote, also composed by Saint Thomas, referring to the Most Precious Blood of the Redeemer, says:
cujus una stilla
salvum facere
totum mundum quit
ab omni scelere.
A single drop of the Lord’s Blood would have been enough to save the entire world from all sin. But God gives Himself in Sacrifice without reserve, reaching the point of pouring Blood and Water from His side, giving His life after having suffered the unspeakable torments of the Passion. And He gives Himself freely, with a generosity and magnificence that are truly Divine.
We, Ministers of the Most High, have the grave responsibility of ensuring the perpetuation of the Holy Sacrifice; the faithful have the task of spiritually and materially supporting those who make the Lord present in the Most Holy Sacrifice. And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
22 June MMXXV
Dominica II post Pentecosten
Transferred Solemnity of Corpus Domini
