"A more solemn and honourable memory of this Sacrament"? What Corpus Christi obscures
... we nevertheless think suitable and worthy that, at least once a year ... a more solemn and honourable memory of this Sacrament be held. This is so because on Holy Thursday, the day on which the Lord himself instituted this Sacrament, the universal Church, occupied with the reconciliation of penitents, blessing the chrism, fulfilling the Commandments about the washing of the feet and many other such things, is not sufficiently free to celebrate so great a Sacrament.
Urban IV's 1264 bull Transiturus, instituting the feast of Corpus Christi, opens with a recognition that the Sacrament of the Eucharist was instituted on Maundy Thursday, on the eve of the Lord's Passion. Why, then, propose a feast significantly removed from Maundy Thursday and the Paschal celebration? The bull's rather unsatisfactory answer is that other ceremonies crowd out the observance of the institution of the Sacrament.
Two of the ceremonies mentioned by the bull, "the reconciliation of penitents" and "blessing the chrism", have no obvious relationship to Maundy Thursday, and certainly not a greater relationship than has the Eucharist. Much contemporary practice is indicative of this, with the Blessing of the Oils often now occurring before Maundy Thursday, while absolution after public penance can hardly be suggested as a feature of contemporary Maundy Thursday observance.
As for "fulfilling the Commandments about the washing of the feet", Augustine reminds us that "brethren do this to one another in turn, even in the visible act itself, when they treat one another with hospitality": it is not, in other words, a liturgical observance but an expression of humility in the exercise of hospitality. As Augustine states, "Great is the commendation we have here of humility".
It does seem odd - if not contradictory - to institute a feast honouring the Eucharist while accepting that it is displaced from Maundy Thursday by lesser ceremonies. Why allow the blessing of oils, the footwashing, and the (now defunct) absolution after public penance to overshadow the Holy Eucharist on the day of its institution? This is hardly to honour the Sacrament.
It also obscures the fundamental relationship between the Sacrament and the Passion of the Lord. This relationship, of course, is central to the nature of the Eucharist as evident in the Words of Institution: "in the same night that he was betrayed". To commemorate the institution of the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday powerfully proclaims this, setting forth the profundity and intimacy of the relationship between the Lord's Supper and the Lord's Passion. This is the purpose of the traditional use of the 1 Corinthians 11:23ff as the Epistle on Maundy Thursday: "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come". Chrysostom pithily declares of this, "And this is that Supper".
Wheatly states of this choice of Epistle in his commentary on the Prayer Book:
the Epistle [contains] an account of the institution of the Lord's Supper: the constant celebration of which on this day, both in the morning and in the evening, after supper, in commemoration of its being first instituted at that time, rendered that portion of Scripture very suitable to the day.
The Epistle, in other words, expounds why Maundy Thursday - the eve of the observance of the Passion of the Lord - is the day to rightly commemorate the Institution of the Eucharist.
Removing this commemoration from Maundy Thursday also removes it from the context of the Passover sacrifice which is integral to how the Evangelists present the Institution of the Sacrament: "Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified" (Matthew 26:2); "After two days was the feast of the passover" (Mark 14:1); "Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover" (Luke 22:1). The manner in which such references abound in the Gospel readings of Holy Week (and the fact that our Jewish neighbours' celebration of Passover often coincides with Holy Week), is a very significant aspect of the meaning of the Sacrament as a 'feast upon a sacrifice'. Giving thanks for the institution of the Eucharist on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday loses this context, central to the Gospel accounts and to the meaning of the Sacrament.
We might also note that removing the commemoration of the institution of the Sacrament from the Holy Week Gospel readings with their emphasis on the Passover could have dark undertones, mindful of the popular anti-Semitic blood libel and the libel of Jewish desecration of the Host. The Host desecration libel became a popular theme of 14th century Corpus Christi sermons, with the feast becoming associated with "cultic anti-Judaism". This is not to say that retaining commemoration of the institution of the Sacrament on Maundy Thursday would have been free of such associations: Holy Week, after all, presents its own difficulties and dark history regarding Christianity and anti-Semitism. It is, however, a suggestion that obscuring the depth of the Eucharist's relationship with Israel's salvation history - key in the Gospel accounts - can too easily cohere with the deceits of supersessionism.
There is another tendency that might be considered as a possible consequence of removing the commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist from Maundy Thursday, with its robust focus on the relationship between Sacrament and Passion, Supper and Atonement. Corpus Christi can become a celebration of the community, whether this is Radical Orthodoxy's idealised sacral community of medieval era Corpus Christi processions, or the egalitarian table fellowship of progressive theologies. This can become the focus, rather than the Eucharist as the "Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death" (Article 28).
A renewed community, of course, does flow from the Lord's Passion set before us in the Sacrament: "and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son". This, however, is very much a fruit of the Lord's atoning sacrifice, which is the saving reality central to the Sacrament. What is more, rather than celebrating the community (whether idealised sacral vision or progressive egalitarianism), the Eucharist first reveals us as the community of sinners, those caught up in "the sins of the whole world", who "obtain remission of our sins" by the Lord's sacrifice. The fact that again and again we must come to the Table of the Lord, praying that "our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood", is testament to how the Sacrament subverts celebration of the community.
Commemorating the institution of the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday particularly critiques any celebration of community: "in the same night that he was betrayed". Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are the days which confront us with the failures of the community (however it is envisaged). Judas betrays, Peter denies, the others flee. In their failures we see our need of the forgiveness which flows from the Lord's Passion. Celebrating the community on the eve of Good Friday is an impossibility.
All of which is to say that celebrating the institution of the Eucharist on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, rather than on Maundy Thursday, fails to provide a context for "a more solemn and honourable memory of this Sacrament". The solemnity and honour of the Sacrament is made manifest by the proximity of its institution to the Lord's saving sacrifice. Its character as the "Sacrament of our Redemption" is manifested by the recollection of the depths of the failures of the Twelve. Its nature as a 'feast upon a sacrifice' is revealed through the context of Passover. The Thursday after Trinity Sunday is a very poor substitute indeed for Maundy Thursday.
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