The Lord God is with us.  God dwells among us.  These are profound statements of faith that remind us of the intimate and personal relationship that God has always desired to have with his people.  From the time in which God drew his people out of slavery in Egypt and gave them the Law on Mt. Sinai God has revealed his desire to be close to his people and to dwell in their midst.  God wants to be a part of our everyday life and wants to help us to live the day to day moments of our lives in holiness.  God enters into human history and has a hand in human events.  During the time of the Exodus God travels with his people in the desert and dwells in the Tent of Meeting as his Shekinah presence descends upon the tent and God’s glory fills the Holy of Holies.  Moses goes there to meet with God and to receive his counsel, emerging from these encounters with a face that is radiant with glory and needs to be veiled. 

     After the Exodus, when the people of Israel settle into the promised land and eventually establish Jerusalem as the center of the empire, David decides to build a temple in which God may dwell.  God tells David that he will not build the temple but that Solomon will build the Temple as God’s dwelling place.  From that time on the Temple becomes a sign of God’s dwelling among the people of Israel.  However, there is a danger in focusing the cult of worship on the Temple.  The people begin to think of God as present in the Temple and are not aware of His Presence in their daily lives.  When the Temple is destroyed during the Exile the people are lost and feel that God has abandoned them.  They must once again search for God and find a new way to understand how He can be encountered in their lives.  After the Exile, the Temple is rebuilt and God is again safely home in Jerusalem.  God wants to be closer to His people and be near them in their day to day life and so in the Incarnation God again draws near to His people and walks among them in a human body, the Body of Jesus the Christ.  The people have a hard time recognizing God’s Presence in Jesus, in his words and deeds, and even within the Temple.  Jesus sees that people are taking for granted the Presence of God and are routinely going about the secular commerce of buying and selling in the Temple precinct.   Jesus foretells that the Temple will be destroyed again and that God will raise up a new Temple in three days, the Temple of the Body of Christ.

     From the time of the early Church the Body of the Risen Christ has been for us the preeminent sign of God’s dwelling among His people.  As St. John tells us in his gospel prologue, God pitches His Tent among us in the Incarnation, the Body of Christ.  God’s Presence is in Jesus the Christ and the Real Presence of Christ remains among us in the Blessed Sacrament.  However, it is easy for us to place the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle, as the Ark of God’s dwelling was placed in the early Temple, and forget about God in our day to day lives.  The Solemnity of Corpus Christi was instituted to draw attention to God’s dwelling among us in the Blessed Sacrament.

     The celebration of Corpus Christi reminds us that God is a part of human history, He dwells among us and walks with us in our everyday journey.  God is present in the Blessed Sacrament and thus His Presence extends all over the world, wherever the Eucharist is celebrated and the Blessed Sacrament is reserved.  Traditionally on this feast day, there is a procession of the Blessed Sacrament in the streets of the city.  It reminds us that it is God’s will to sanctify the secular, to be a part of our human affairs and thus to perfect them in His grace.  As much as our society wants to limit God’s presence and consign Him to a place of private devotion, God will not be excluded from human affairs.  As St. Paul reminds us in his writings, we are now God’s Temples and we are called to carry His Presence out into the world.  Our bodies are holy places of God’s Indwelling Presence.

     The feast of Corpus Christi challenges us to fill the world with God’s Presence.  The priest effects God’s Presence in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Mass in the church that God may be worshipped and God’s people might be sanctified.  The laity are called to effect God’s Presence in the world as living temples of God’s grace and Presence, carrying the Blessed Sacrament within themselves and living as witnesses that there is nowhere that God is not present in our world today.