The Rev. Matthew Wright
The Feast of Corpus Christi
Holy Cross Monastery, June 4, 2026
When you stare at the sun—which I don’t recommend doing, it’s bad for your eyes—or when you look at any bright light for a period of time, and then look away at something else, you see for a little while what’s called an “afterimage” now overlayed on whatever else you’re now looking at—which is caused by overloaded photoreceptors in your eyes.
I think this is a good metaphor for what happens to our spiritual eye as we gaze at the Eucharist in worship week after week—or, here in the Monastery, day after day—as the host and chalice are raised at the Great Elevation—or, perhaps, when we sit in the presence of the Eucharist within the tabernacle or placed in a monstrance during Benediction or Adoration.
We gaze at the Eucharist so that we may then see its afterimage wherever we look—not simply as an overlay, but as the Real Presence of Our Lord as the true inner reality of each person and each moment. And while gazing at the sun can damage our sight, gazing at our Lord’s presence in the Eucharist perfects our sight—it shows us things as they really are. The Holy Eucharist is a sacramental mirror reflecting back to us the true nature of reality, the true nature of ourselves, the true nature of creation.
As most of you will have noticed, in parish worship, the “Eucharistic elements,” the gifts of bread and wine, are typically brought up to the altar from the back of the church, from within the congregation, at the time of the offertory. And this is because they are the gifts of the people, symbolizing our life and our labor. Once upon a time, they would have actually been the gifts of the people—bread baked and wine fermented by members of the community. The grapes would have been tread in the wine press by the feet of someone in those pews, the wheat gathered and milled by one of us, the dough prepared and baked by hands that were present. And within the bread and wine are of course the grapes and wheat, and in them the sunshine and earth, wind and rain—really, all of creation.
The Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, of blessed memory, Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote, “When I hold a piece of bread, [and look] deeply into [it], I see the sunshine, the clouds, the great earth. Without the sunshine, no wheat can grow. Without the clouds, there is no rain for the wheat to grow. Without the great earth, nothing can grow.” Inside one piece of bread, the whole universe is present.
The Eucharistic elements are the stuff of creation, transformed by human labor and love, and then given to be alchemized further still—to be transformed into a sacramental mirror revealing to us who we really are. We, the Body of Christ, gaze at and then receive into ourselves, the Body of Christ. In the words of St. Augustine, in the Eucharist we behold what we are. In every Eucharist we offer, in miniature, in microcosm, in our gifts of bread and wine, our whole community, and really the whole of creation, to be consecrated as the Body of Christ.
We’re taking the whole universe and placing it on that altar in every Eucharist. And we’re taking our whole selves and placing them on that altar. We give it all to God, and at the epiclesis and the elevation the alchemy is completed and revealed—and we are shown what we have, in fact, given; we are shown who we, in fact, are. And it is a staggering revelation. Behold what you are. Christ incarnate, in the stuff of our lives, in the stuff of creation. We look in the mirror, we see the truth. And then it is broken and given back to us. We receive that truth into ourselves—into our cells. And then we are sent out into the world to see the world as it truly is.
But we don’t simply see an afterimage superimposed on reality. No, the Eucharist trains the eye of our heart to see things from the inside out, to see the actual Eucharistic nature of creation and of every being. About ten years ago this was brought home to me in a powerful way. I was in British Colombia to lead a retreat and on the way to the retreat center my host asked, “Would you like to see the salmon spawning?” As it turned out, we would be driving by a river where the salmon run was active, and the spawning season was now almost over.
Well, I had pictures of fish jumping upstream before. And, honestly, I wasn’t that interested in seeing it in person—I was tired from a long plane flight and wanted to be done—but ever accommodating, out of my mouth came, “Sure. Why not?” So we parked the car, walked through a trail in the woods, and as we rounded a bend in the trees, the river emerged, and there they were—the few remaining salmon still making the journey—throwing themselves against the current as they worked their way back to the place of their birth—and they looked utterly exhausted, like it was taking every tired fiber of their being to continue onward. And a few were finally settling into a spot to lay their eggs. And others were clearly dying. And as I looked I saw scattered all along the riverbanks—corpses. Hundreds and hundreds of salmon corpses.
And then I realized that the air, in fact, reeked of dead salmon, and all around us were wings flapping as gulls came down and tore flesh from these dead salmon and plucked out their eyes. And as I stood there taking in this whole scene, to my utter surprise, and with a fierceness and a tenderness that pierced me to the bone, I heard the voice of Christ speaking through this whole gestalt, “This is my Body, given for you.” The few remaining, living salmon, throwing themselves against the current, saying to their future young—“This is my body, given for you.” Those who had finished the journey and were now dying—“This is my body, given for you.” Those now days dead, as their flesh was torn by the gulls—“This is my body, given for you.”
I realized I was standing smack-dab in the middle of a living icon of the Eucharistic universe; that this is what Christ, exhausted and inexhaustible, is saying through every facet of creation: “This is my body, given for you.” But mostly we do not have eyes to see. And so we gaze at the Eucharist, and we receive the Eucharist, day after day, and week after week, to train our spiritual eye, to show us things as they really are. So that we might meet each being and each moment as an encounter with the Real Presence of Christ. Too often we have understood the mystery of Christ’s Body as merely ecclesial or institutional. But the true proportions of the Mystical Body of Christ are the unfathomable dimensions of the universe itself.
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus says in our Gospel reading. The bread… that is life… is Jesus. “…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Do we hide from life, or do we let it in? Paula D’Arcy says that “God comes to you disguised as your life.” Your life is the bread that is Jesus. Do you allow it to be broken open? Do you receive it and say Amen to it? To see our life, and the life of the world, as the Eucharist that it is, as bearing the Real and Living Presence of Christ, we have to train our eye. And that is why we need to gaze into the mirror that is lifted up daily at this altar.
Now I have mentioned gazing upon the Eucharist a few times, and it is, of course, common practice in many communities on the Feast of Corpus Christi to gaze upon a Eucharistic host in a monstrance and even to process with it around a church or through the streets. Well, those of you who know your 39 Articles will know that in Article 25 we are told that “The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them.”
I typically don’t worry much about this. I tend to say, “Well, you know, the 39 Articles were relegated to the historical documents section of the Prayer Book for a reason.” But it’s true that the sacrament was not ordained by Christ merely to be gazed upon. Similarly, my marriage to Yanick was not ordained simply for me to gaze upon her. And yet, it can be profitable at times to simply gaze upon our Beloved. To rest in their presence. To receive their beauty. To adore them, without agenda.
John MacQuarrie writes of the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament: “It is in terms of this focusing of our Lord’s presence that the service of Benediction is to be understood — and also justified, if anyone thinks it needs justifying. Psychologically speaking, we need some concrete, visible manifestation toward which to direct our devotion; theologically speaking, this is already provided for us by our Lord’s gracious focusing of his presence in the Blessed Sacrament.
“When this is understood, complaints about ‘idolatry’ or ‘fetichism’ are seen to be beside the point. Let us assure any who may be perturbed over such matters that we are not being so stupid as to worship a wafer, nor do we have such an archaic and myth-laden mentality that we believe the object before us to be charged with magical power. Rather, it is in and through the Sacrament that we adore Christ, because we, being men and not angels, have need of an earthly manifestation of the divine presence, and because he, in his grace and mercy, has promised to grant us his presence in this particular manifestation.”
Similarly, Fr. Robert Hendrickson writes: “We do not simply gaze—though that is part of the act for we do look intently with admiration, thought, or surprise. Benediction is not the act of gazing alone though—it is the community’s adoration—the body comes together in love to give our attention, if but for a moment, to the One who calls us and who comes to be with us. For some, that space may feel like a quiet time with Jesus as a friend. Others may find themselves thrown down in awe at the throne of grace. Others may be walking alongside Jesus on the road. Others may simply relish the absolute mystery of it all and watch the beauty of holiness unfold.”
Beloveds, a sun rises daily at this altar. Gaze into it without fear and have your vision transformed. Adore the one you see in the uplifted host—and look closely and see in that host the entire universe. Behold what you are, and know that you yourself are daily placed on this altar, and consecrated as Christ’s Body. Know that God comes to you disguised as your life—as all of life. And hear Jesus speaking through all of creation, “This is my Body, given for you.”
Amen.
