The feast of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread he will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

The Jews began to argue among themselves: -How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and 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.

He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the Father who sent me lives and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died: whoever eats this bread will live forever.

Bread of Life Speech

On the feast of Corpus Christi we celebrate Christ's revelation of the mystery of the Eucharist. His words are of such strong realism that they exclude any interpretation in a figurative sense. The listeners understand the proper and direct meaning of Jesus' words (v. 52), but they do not believe that such a statement can be true.

If it had been understood in a figurative or symbolic sense, it would not have caused them such great surprise, nor would the discussion have taken place. From this is also born the faith of the Church that through the conversion of the bread and wine into his Body and Blood, Christ is made present in this sacrament..

The Council of Trent sums up the Catholic faith when it states: "Because Christ, our Redeemer, said that what He offered in the form of bread was truly His Body, this conviction has always been maintained in the Church, which the Holy Council declares anew: by the consecration of the bread and wine the change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the Body is effected...". Body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood; the Catholic Church has rightly and appropriately called this change transubstantiation" (DS 1642)." Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1376.

In this speech Jesus compares three times (cfr vv. 31-32.49.58) the true Bread of Life, his own Body, with the manna, with which God had fed the Hebrews daily for forty years in the desert.. Thus, invites us to nourish our souls frequently with the food of his Body.

"From the comparison of the Bread of Angels with bread and with manna the disciples could easily deduce that, just as the body is nourished with bread daily, and the Hebrews were daily refreshed with manna in the desert, in the same way the Christian soul could daily eat and feast with the Bread of Heaven. Moreover, almost all the Holy Fathers of the Church teach that the "daily bread", which is commanded to be asked for in the Sunday prayer, is not so much to be understood of the material bread, food for the body, as of the daily reception of the Eucharistic Bread". S. Pius X, Sacra Tridentina Synodus, December 20, 1905.

On the Sunday after Holy Trinity Sunday, thehe Church celebrates Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.. That is its full title, although we usually refer to it by its former Latin name, "...".Corpus Christi". It is interesting to know that its oldest title was Festum Eucharistiae.