The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – June 22, 2025
It’s been five years since COVID-19 changed everything so much that we can mark time as “BC” or “AC,” before or after COVID. For some that change was permanent, with loved ones dying or themselves suffering from long-term effects.
But for the most part, we have learned to live with COVID as we do with the flu, managing temporary spikes of either with increased attention to safer health practices. However, one thing should never change with these seasonal outbreaks. That is the value of the people’s sharing in the blood of Christ.
Just as essential services remained available even during the pandemic, so should the Cup, allowing for people to decide for themselves when they are able to share in it.
Simply put, the blood of Christ matters all the time, or it doesn’t. If we believe that “Holy Communion has a fuller form as a sign when it takes place under both kinds” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 281), then temporarily withholding the Cup from the people simply because it is COVID or flu season makes no sense.
Just as essential services remained available even during the pandemic, so should the Cup, allowing for people to decide for themselves when they are able to share in it. And even if no one does, by offering the Precious Blood, a “clearer expression is given to the divine will by which the new and eternal Covenant is ratified in the Blood of the Lord” (GIRM, 281), a divine promise that never changes with the seasons.
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