Happy Feast of Corpus Christi!

A happy and most glorious feast of Corpus Christi, a day on which we honor and celebrate Our Lord’s immense gift to us, the Most Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood. This feast is celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and is often celebrated a second time on the following Sunday as the External Feast of Corpus Christi.

A notable part of the beautiful ceremonies of this day is the procession with the Blessed Sacrament enthroned in the monstrance. The procession features the magnificent hymn Pange lingua, which was written by the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas Aquinas and includes the familiar Tantum ergo that we sing at Benediction.

The Gospel for today is a passage taken from the Bread of Life discourse found in St. John, where Our Lord speaks in clear and distinct terms about the nature of the Blessed Sacrament. He identifies it as truly His own Body and Blood, of which we must partake if we are to have life within us.

In illo témpore: Dixit Jesus turbis Judæórum: Caro mea vere est cibus, et sanguis meus vere est potus. Qui mandúcat meam carnem, et bibit meum sánguinem, in me manet, et ego in illo.

At that time Jesus said to the multitudes of the Jews: My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in him.

– John 6:55-56