God, it is fitting that she should every year solemnly commemorate the institution of this most holy mystery. Now, since we cannot keep Maundy-Thursday as a feast of joy, because it is a day of fasting, and devoted to the memory of our Lord’s sufferings, the Church has selected another Thursday, the Thursday after the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, to be observed as a solemn Feast of thanksgiving for the institution of the Blessed Sacrament. This glorious Feast is called the Feast of Corpus Christi, or of the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The love of Jesus as shown in the Most Holy Sacrament. Jesus, having loved His own unto the end, bequeathed Himself to them in this Sacrament of His love, as the most priceless of memorials, to dwell always with them, to be sacrificed for them, and to be united to them in the most intimate way by Holy Communion. As a solemn testament He gave to us His Body and Blood, His Humanity and Divinity, in short Himself, with all His graces and merits; thus the Holy Eucharist is the abiding memorial of our Lord’s infinite and inconceivable love. The circumstances under which our Lord Jesus instituted the Blessed Sacrament reveal His unbounded love. He instituted It “the same night in which He was betrayed” (1 Cor. 11, 23), and therefore at the very time when the hatred of His enemies was at its highest pitch, and when they were actually making their preparations to put Him to death. He instituted It, though He knew that there was a vile traitor among His chosen followers, and that many, many Christians would despise and dishonour Him in this Sacrament. Neither the deadly hatred of His enemies, nor the ingratitude of the faithful, could deter Him from giving them this final and enduring proof of His love. Oh, how mighty, how deep is the love which our Lord and Saviour has for ungrateful man! The Sanhedrim had met to resolve upon the death of Jesus: the soldiers were all ready to seize Him: His traitor apostle was about to betray Him. Surely all this will abate His love even at the last moment! Yes, if His love be human, it will; but His love was the love of God, and it was not quenched. He responded to the hatred and treachery of men by the institution of the Most Holy Sacrament, thus giving to the human race a proof of love so intense, that it never could have entered into the hearts of men to conceive it. And — as St. Paul says — this wonderful love was shown by our Lord on the night when He was betrayed. At the very moment that faithless men were betraying their God, He invented a new means of proving His love for them. While they were preparing for Him a most cruel death, He gave to them the means of attaining eternal life. Just when human hatred was doing all it could to remove Him from the world, He discovered a new way of remaining always in the world. He wrought the most astounding miracle of Omnipotence, that He might remain with them. Even as He went forth from the Father without leaving Him, so did He go forth from the world without leaving it. And this He did “on the night when He was betrayed”, just as if nothing had occurred to quench His love,
