The feast of Corpus Christi is an extension of Holy Thursday the institution of the sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord. Holy Thursday focuses on the main actions of Christ at the Last Supper, namely the institution of the Eucharist, the priesthood, that of service, the washing of the disciples’ feet, and His time in the Garden of Gethsemane. Overtime, the central focus of the Last Supper often was overlooked, namely Jesus’ gift to us of His Body and Blood to eat and drink.
In the thirteenth century the Church established this Holy Day of Obligation so that the faithful could focus specifically on the mystery of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist as the primary focus of the Mass. Songs than began to be written for this feast. We may be familiar with the two written by St. Thomas Aquinas: Tantum Ergo and O Salutaris Hostia.
This feast reminds us of Jesus’ promise before He ascended into heaven: “And behold I am with you always until the close of the age.” (Matt 28:20) Truly God is with us in this great sacrament of the altar.
In the Old Covenant after the fall and before Christ’s birth God lived among his people first in the burning bush, the pillar of cloud by day, and pillar of fire by night. Later he lived in the Jerusalem temple on the wings of the cherubim of the Ark of the Covenant. The beauty of the great gift of the Holy Eucharist is that God does not only dwell in one building far away in Jerusalem. After the institution of this great sacrament God is with us in the most real way in every Catholic tabernacle across the world. Anyone can come to visit him and open his or her heart to the heart of God. Since Adam and Eve sinned and rejected the presence of God, God has desired to live in our midst once again. This is the reason he instituted the Holy Eucharist, the gift of his Body and Blood so that he might live with us and we encounter him.