On or around June 4, 1839, Thomas C. Wilson, a constable in the District of Columbia, arrested and detained in jail for the next week one Ralph Gould, on the pretext that Gould was a runaway slave. In fact, Gould was a free black man who’d been born in Boston and served in the US Navy, and he had documentation to prove it. After a week in jail, Gould petitioned the court for a writ of habeas corpus, a provision in law that requires a civil authority to bring the person in question physically before the court.
The intention behind the requirement of habeas corpus is that it protects individuals from illegal detention, giving a person the right to make his or her case to the courts that the powers that be have abused their authority. It’s a right that American law inherited from English common law, and is protected in the US Constitution. It was, apparently, not uncommon for free blacks to be kidnapped and sold into slavery (think of Twelve Years A Slave). Recourse to a writ of habeas corpus was often used to protect against this particular aspect of the unjust system of slavery.
And on June 11, 1839, Judge William Cranch issued a writ of habeas corpus, requiring that Ralph Gould should appear before him. At that appearance, Gould provided documentation of his status as a free man, and the judge ordered that he be discharged from custody.*
The phrase “habeas corpus” comes from medieval Latin, and is an abbreviation of a longer sentence that translates, “We command that you have the body of the detained brought before us.” The “habeas corpus” part means “that you have the body.” The power of a writ of habeas corpus could go both ways in antebellum America. Slave owners could use it to prove ownership and regain custody of detained slaves. But for Ralph Gould, it guaranteed his freedom.
There’s a linguistic intersection between that old Latin legal phrase and the name of the feast we celebrate today: Corpus Christi. It is not always easy to know precisely what Jesus means when he says “I am the living bread... whoever eats of this bread will live for ever.” And I wonder if it will help us if we borrow the phrase from the law that has already shown itself to be useful in the pursuit of freedom.
On March 14th of this year, in a manner of speaking, we made a petition for habeas corpus in this parish, when we brought out the Blessed Sacrament of the Body of our Lord, and asked him to be obviously and unavoidably present to us during uncertain times.
We knew that we were facing difficulty. We knew we were in trouble, but we had no idea three months ago what that trouble might look like.
We didn’t know we were headed for month after month of sheltering-in-place, closed businesses, and worship behind closed doors. We didn’t know that we were headed for many millions infected by the coronavirus, and more than 110,000 dead in this country. We didn’t know that we were headed for crippling, mass unemployment and swift and drastic economic contraction. We didn’t know that we were headed for a weekend of destructive looting, then a week of protest. We didn’t know that we were headed for a government that would challenge the constitutional rights of the people. We didn’t know that the cry that “black lives matter” would be taken up with such power by so many, or that the matter of police brutality would become so urgent, as it also became so real. We didn’t know that tens of thousands of people would walk through this city in peaceful and powerful protest to demand justice, fairness, and equality under the law. We didn’t know that three months later we’d be completely unable to predict when we might all be able to gather again in this church as one family to worship and praise the true and living God.
We only knew that we needed help. We needed Jesus’ help - that much we knew.
And so, in our own version of a writ of habeas corpus, we had the Body of Jesus brought before us. And there he has stood, night and day, for these last three months, in the flesh, making himself known to us, in the sound of sheer silence, ever steadfast, living up to his ancient name, Emmanuel: God with us.
Our plea of habeas corpus - to have the Body brought before us - was not a matter of either Christian legalism or of piety run amok. It was, rather a statement of faith that Jesus was telling the truth when he said, “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
You’d have thought that the Christian impulse for habeas corpus would have been pioneered by old Doubting Thomas, who insisted on seeing the risen Jesus, and demanded to be allowed to feel for himself the proof of the wounds of the Crucifixion. But actually, we learned the lesson from Jesus himself when he took bread and said “This is my Body,” and then commanded his followers to “do this in remembrance of me.” And every time we approach the altar for communion, we make our own silent petition for habeas corpus, a petition that will never be denied, and that has always brought with it freedom.
Today it’s 181 years and three days since Ralph Gould was granted a writ of habeas corpus, got his life back, and re-gained his freedom. If something as simple as a writ of legal habeas corpus could result in one man’s freedom, just imagine what can happen for us when we ask to have Christ’s Body brought to us, when we bask in his communion, and learn from his love, and are given the limitless power of his life.
To some people, our elaborate attention to a little wafer of bread in this church looks strange and over-zealous. I am not sure those people realize how earnestly we believe Jesus when he said “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” And, yes, we are bold, to ask Jesus to present himself before us: to have his Body brought to us, because we need it… we need him.
That’s what today is, just another plea, in our journey toward the freedom that comes only from Christ, that we may have the Body of Christ brought before us.
Think of today as a petition from God’s people for a writ of habeas Corpus Christi.
And remember that every writ of habeas Corpus Christi is granted to those who have been fed by Christ’s sacred Body and nourished with his precious Blood. Indeed our prayer to have the Body of Christ brought to us was answered before we were inclined to ask it, and before we knew we needed it. Thanks be to God.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
The Solemnity of Corpus Christi, 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia
*Details about the writ of habeas corpus granted to Ralph Gould come from “‘You have the body’: Habeas Corpus Case Records of the US Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, 1829-1863” by Chris Naylor, from Prologue Magazine of the National Archives, Fall 2005, Vol 37, No 3, Genealogy Notes, found at www. archives.gov/publications
Judge Cranch’s order to release Ralph Gould, from the National Archives