” Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh, drinks my blood, has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” (Jn 6:53-57)
Two months earlier, the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, was observed on Maundy Thursday in a sombre atmosphere leading to Good Friday. The liturgy on the day also commemorates Christ’s washing of the disciples’ feet, the institution of the priesthood, and the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Day of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ the Lord, also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is a liturgical solemnity celebrating the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Following Mass, the Holy Eucharist, the Body of Christ, is kept in a ciborium, in the tabernacle.
The feast is liturgically celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday; 60 days after Easter, or the Sunday immediately following the Most Holy Trinity as its proper day.
Every year, the Feast of Corpus Christi invites us to renew the wonder and joy for this wonderful gift of the Lord, which is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life.
By his Real Presence in the Eucharist, Christ fulfils His promise to be with us, “Always, until the end of the age.”(Mt 28:20).
As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “It is the law of friendship that friends should live together… Christ has not left us without His bodily presence in this our pilgrimage, but He joins us to Himself in this sacrament in the reality of His body and blood.” With this gift of Christ’s presence in our midst, the Church is truly blessed.
As Jesus told His disciples, referring to His presence among them, “Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”(Mt 13:17).
In the Eucharist, the Church both receives the gift of Jesus Christ and gives grateful thanks to God for such a blessing. This thanksgiving is the only proper response, for through this gift of Himself, in the celebration of the Eucharist under the appearances of bread and wine, the glorified Christ who rose from the dead. This is what the Church means when she speaks of the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist.
In the Holy Eucharist, then, Jesus gives us His own body and blood as spiritual food to nurture and sustain divine life of grace in us, for our of faith journey.
– Sherida DSouza