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Our Feast Day of The Most Holy Blood & Body of Christ (Corpus Christi)

Get closer to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament as we celebrate our Feast day of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

We will be offering Adoration on:
– Friday, June 9th from 1 PM to 10 PM and
– Sunday, June 11th from 1 PM – 5 PM

Please join us and spend some time with our Lord.  All are welcome!

If you are able to serve as a Guardian for an hour, please sign up below.

What is Adoration?
Did you ever wish that you had a “pause” button for life? You know, the ability to pause the really important moments so that you could more fully enjoy them? In a way, Eucharistic Adoration is a “pause button” for the moment in Mass when the priest elevates the host, the Body of Christ. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a form of prayer that began centuries ago. The same Eucharist we receive at Mass is what (or more accurately Who) we worship in Adoration.  During Exposition and Adoration, a consecrated host is displayed in a beautiful sacred vessel called a Monstrance. The word “monstrance” means “to show.” The monstrance allows Christ’s body to be seen and “shown” to us – so that we can be present to God as He is present to us in His Eucharist. During Adoration, we have the opportunity to come face-to-face with the living God. Like spending time with a close friend, Eucharistic Adoration is about deepening and strengthening our personal relationship with God.

What do I do during Adoration?
When the Blessed Sacrament enters and exits the church, we kneel as a sign of respect. During the rest of the time, feel free to assume a position that will allow you to pray and listen. This is your time to bring your heart, your worries, your joys, your hopes – your entire life – before a God who is madly in love with you. During Adoration, use the music, prayers and Scripture readings as a way to focus your heart on Christ. There is no right or wrong way to come before the King, He just wants you to spend time with Him. While we will be worshipping together as a family, this is also a very individual time of prayer.

What is a Guardian of the Blessed Sacrament?
Guardians of Adoration offer an hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament when it is exposed in the monstrance during Adoration.  The Blessed Sacrament can never be left alone.  As a guardian, you will make a Holy Hour, whereby you come to the Adoration Chapel at your appointed time, sign in, and remain in the Chapel until the next set of guardians come to relieve you for the next scheduled hour.  The goal is to schedule a minimum of four guardians for every hour.  This is to ensure someone is always guarding the Blessed Sacrament.

English Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration- June 4, 2021

Spanish Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration- June 4, 2021

What is Eucharistic Adoration?

Corpus Christi2

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is also known as the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, which translates from Latin to “Body of Christ.” This feast originated in France in the mid-thirteenth century and was extended to the whole Church by Pope Urban IV in 1264. This feast is celebrated on the Thursday following the Trinity Sunday or, as in the USA, on the Sunday following that feast.

This feast calls us to focus on two manifestations of the Body of Christ, the Holy Eucharist and the Church. The primary purpose of this feast is to focus our attention on the Eucharist. The opening prayer at Mass calls our attention to Jesus’ suffering and death and our worship of Him, especially in the Eucharist.

At every Mass our attention is called to the Eucharist and the Real Presence of Christ in it. The secondary focus of this feast is upon the Body of Christ as it is present in the Church. The Church is called the Body of Christ because of the intimate communion which Jesus shares with his disciples. He expresses this in the gospels by using the metaphor of a body in which He is the head. This image helps keep in focus both the unity and the diversity of the Church.

body & bloodThe Feast of Corpus Christi is commonly used as an opportunity for public Eucharistic processions, which serves as a sign of common faith and adoration. Our worship of Jesus in His Body and Blood calls us to offer to God our Father a pledge of undivided love and an offering of ourselves to the service of others. – from the Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)

It is our Parish Feast day!

Most Precious Blood Catholic Church was established by at that time the Bishop of the Diocese of Orlando, Bishop Thomas Wenski, in April 2005 to serve the growing Catholic Community in Oviedo and East Seminole County. The late Pope John Paul II had designated 2005 as “The Year of the Eucharist”, calling upon all Catholics to honor and respect God’s gift of the Eucharist, to receive it more faithfully, and to reflect upon the meaning of the Real Presence of Christ in our lives.

Bishop Wenski chose the name of our parish in honor of the Eucharist.  At every moment of every day, Mass is being celebrated somewhere in the world. We rejoice that the name of our community, in honor of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, because it is prayerfully remembered at all times. Our first Mass was celebrated on April 24, 2005, the same day that Pope Benedict XVI was installed as the Pontiff of the Catholic Church.

Dogma of the Church

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ – as it is now known – honours Jesus substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament. The truth of the Real Presence was confirmed in 1215 by the Fourth Lateran Council. Later, in 1551, the Council of Trent definitively re-affirmed the doctrine in a passage quoted verbatim by the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation” (cf. CCC 1376).

Why does Jesus give himself to us as food and drink?

Jesus gives himself to us in the Eucharist as spiritual nourishment because he loves us. God’s whole plan for our salvation is directed to our participation in the life of the Trinity, the communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our sharing in this life begins with our Baptism, when by the power of the Holy Spirit we are joined to Christ, thus becoming adopted sons and daughters of the Father. It is strengthened and increased in Confirmation. It is nourished and deepened through our participation in the Eucharist. By eating the Body and drinking the Blood of Christ in the Eucharist we become united to the person of Christ through his humanity. . . . In being united to the humanity of Christ we are at the same time united to his divinity. Our mortal and corruptible natures are transformed by being joined to the source of life. . . .

By being united to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we are drawn up into the eternal relationship of love among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As Jesus is the eternal Son of God by nature, so we become sons and daughters of God by adoption through the sacrament of Baptism. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation (Chrismation), we are temples of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, and by his in dwelling we are made holy by the gift of sanctifying grace. The ultimate promise of the Gospel is that we will share in the life of the Holy Trinity. The Fathers of the Church called this participation in the divine life “divinization” (theosis). In this we see that God does not merely send us good things from on high; instead, we are brought up into the inner life of God, the communion among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the celebration of the Eucharist (which means “thanksgiving”) we give praise and glory to God for this sublime gift.

Source – Catholic Current

When the bread and wine become the Body of Christ, why do they still look and taste like bread and wine?

In the celebration of the Eucharist, the glorified Christ becomes present under the appearances of bread and wine in a way that is unique, a way that is uniquely suited to the Eucharist. In the Church’s traditional theological language, in the act of consecration during the Eucharist the “substance” of the bread and wine is changed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the “substance” of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. At the same time, the “accidents” or appearances of bread and wine remain. “Substance” and “accident” are here used as philosophical terms that have been adapted by great medieval theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas in their efforts to understand and explain the faith. Such terms are used to convey the fact that what appears to be bread and wine in every way (at the level of “accidents” or physical attributes––that is, what can be seen, touched, tasted, or measured) in fact is now the Body and Blood of Christ (at the level of “substance” or deepest reality). This change at the level of substance from bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is called “transubstantiation.” According to Catholic faith, we can speak of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist because this transubstantiation has occurred. (cf. Catechism, no. 1376)