The Solemnity of Corpus Christi

From a Work by St. Thomas Aquinas

(Opusculum 57, in festo Corporis Christi, lect. 1-4)

     It was the will of God's only-begotten Son that people should share in his divinity.  So he assumed our human nature.  He did so in order that, by becoming human, he might make us gods.  

     In addition, when he took our flesh, he dedicated all of its substance to our salvation.  He offered his human body to God the Father on the altar of the cross.  It was a sacrifice for our reconciliation [with the Father].  He shed his blood for our ransom and purification, so that we might be redeemed from our wretched state of bondage, and cleansed from all sin. 

     To ensure that the memory of so great a gift would abide with us forever, he left his body as food and his blood as drink, for the faithful to consume in the form of bread and wine.

     Oh precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness!  Could anything be of more intrinsic value?  Under the old law it was the flesh of calves and goats that was offered, but here Christ himself--the true God--is set before us as our food.  What could be more wonderful than this?  No other sacrament has greater healing power.  Through it sins are purged away, virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of every spiritual gift.  It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, so that what was instituted for the salvation of all may be for the benefit of all.  In the end, no one can fully express the sweetness of this sacrament, in which spiritual delight is tasted at its very source, and in which we renew the memory of that surpassing love for us which Christ revealed in his passion.

     To impress the vastness of this love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful, our Lord instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper.  As he was on the point of leaving the world to go to the Father, after celebrating the Passover with his disciples, he left it as a perpetual memorial of his passion.  It was the fulfillment of ancient figures, and the greatest of all his miracles.  And for those who were to experience the sorrow of his departure, it was destined to be a unique and abiding consolation.