Corpus Christi: The Feast of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Jesus saved us on the Cross, and the Eucharist, instituted on the eve of Christ’s Passion, is the memorial of this. The altar is the continuation of Calvary. On the altar, Jesus is the Victim, for the words of the double consecration manifest the separation of His Body and Blood, which flowed abundantly during the Passion until the Sacred Heart was pierced by the centurion’s spear. The Immolated Christ is offered to the Divine Majesty.

At Mass, the Savior acts in the person of His minister, the priest, offering in an unbloody manner the unique redeeming Sacrifice in order to continue its action and distribute its fruits. In this we see that the Eucharist was instituted under the form of food, so that we might unite ourselves to the Victim of Calvary: “He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood shall have life everlasting” (Jn. 6:54).

The Sacred Host is thus “the wheat that nourishes our souls”, as the Blessed Liturgy says. And just as Christ, who died and rose again, received the eternal life of the Father, in the same way Christians participate in this eternal life by uniting themselves to Jesus through this august Sacrament. The anticipated possession of divine life on earth in the Eucharist is the promise and the beginning of the life we will fully enjoy in Heaven: “The same bread of the angels that we eat now under sacred veils,” says the Council of Trent, “we will also eat in Heaven without a veil.”

The Mass is the summit of the Church’s faith. The Holy Mass, the Eucharist Sacrifice, is the most perfect act of religion, and communion is the means established by Our Lord to participate fully in His saving action. May our devotion to this Body and Blood of the Savior obtain for us the fruits of the Redemption that He won for us on the Cross.