A Message from Fr. Brent Bowen, OP
Dear friends,
St. Thomas Aquinas is well known for his volumes of theological writing. But perhaps my favorite genre of his writings is his poetry about the Holy Eucharist. St. Thomas composed all the prayers for the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord (Corpus Christi), and our Church still uses these prayers in our Mass to this day. One that is particularly important for us as Dominican Friars is a prayer called the O Sacrum Convivium. The friars recite this prayer whenever we pray the Liturgy of the Hours in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament:
O Sacred Banquet!
in which Christ becomes our food,
the memory of His passion is celebrated,
the soul is filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory is given to us.
In the Eucharist, Jesus fulfills His promise to be with us until the end of the age (c.f. Matthew 28:20). The fulfillment of this promise, however, comes about in a way that no one would expect. Rather than manifesting His presence to us in power and glory, Jesus instead makes Himself present in the most humble of ways under the appearances of bread and wine, food for our bodies and our souls.
Whenever we celebrate the Holy Eucharist together around the altar of the Lord, we are drawn into the mystery of Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. The grace won for us by Jesus' passion is represented (literally: re-presented, or made present again) on the altar. We are given the privilege of entering into the heart of God's saving victory over sin and death. We then come forward to consume Him (c.f. John 6:54; Luke 22:19), filling our souls with grace.
Whenever we receive the Eucharist, we receive the resurrected Jesus in His body, blood, soul, and divinity. He gives us a pledge of what He promised to us: that we who have died with Christ in Baptism will also rise with him in glory (c.f. Romans 6).
This short prayer captures so much of the reality of the Eucharist. St. Thomas Aquinas, our patron, was a man whose love for sacred truth overflowed into his devotion to our Lord in the Eucharist. I recommend taking some time to pray with this beautiful prayer, asking his intercession that we may know and love Jesus' Eucharistic presence as he did.
In Christ,
Fr. Brent A. Bowen, O.P.
Parochial Vicar, Director of Evangelization