Only a small handful of Irish Anglican parishes will be celebrating Corpus Christi - a sobering reminder of the reality of Irish Anglicanism and its distance from an authentically catholic understanding of the Holy Eucharist. For those of us who value the richness of the Anglican tradition but who also seek its completion and fullness in catholic communion with the See of Peter, today's feast can be another step on our pilgrimage.
May the words of St Augustine of Hippo encourage us on our journey:
You see on God's altar bread and a cup. That is what the evidence of your eyes tells you but your faith requires you to believe that the bread is the body of Christ, and the cup the blood of Christ ...
It is the sacrament of yourselves that is placed on the Lord's Table, and it is the sacrament of yourselves that you are receiving. You reply 'Amen' to what you are, and thereby agree that such you are. You hear the words 'The body of Christ' and you reply 'Amen'. Be, then, a member of Christ's body, so that your 'Amen' may accord with the truth ...
Be, then, what you see, and receive what you are.
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