Feast of Corpus Christi (07/06/2026): O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption. Who live and reign with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, on God, for ever and ever.
Commentary on the Sunday Mass Readings for the Feast of Corpus Christi, Year A:
The First Reading is from Deuteronomy 8:2-3; 14-16. The Chosen People’s journey from Egypt to Palestine, led through the vast desert of Sinai, an expanse of wilderness without food or water. God provided for them a special food which fell around their encampments every evening—a food that has ever since been called “manna,” expressing the wonderment of the Israelites when they first saw it. This food, as well as water which burst forth from the rocks at the command of Moses, nourished and sustained them during their forty years’ journeying in the desert until they eventually reached the Promised Land.
That this “manna,” this miraculous food from the skies, was a symbol, a foreshadowing, of the more miraculous food from heaven which our divine Lord was to give to us to sustain and nourish us spiritually on our journey toward our eternal promised land, hardly needs emphasizing. Our Lord himself refers to the “manna” given by God to their ancestors in the desert but says that he will them the true bread from heaven (Jn 6:31ff).
The Second Reading is from 1 Cor 10:16-17. St. Paul has much to say about the Blessed Eucharist in this first Epistle to the Corinthians. In these two verses he shares how Christian take part in the real sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ and are therefore in communion with God. The feast of Corpus Christi or the Body of Christ is a commemoration or calling to mind of that extraordinary act of love for us which our Divine Lord performed on the night before he died. Through his divine power he left to his Church, to his followers, the power to re-present again and again the sacrifice of his human nature which he was about to offer to the Father next day on the cross for the salvation and elevation of mankind.
The Gospel from John 6:51-58: from Jesus’ discourse on the Bread of Life. This section refers directly to the fact that Christ’s human body—his “flesh” and “blood”—would be the sacrificial victim that would win eternal life for men and at the same time as a sacrament it would be their heavenly food and drink. Not only the incredulous Jews, but even many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve: Will you too go away? Simon Peter answered him, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Corpus Christi Sunday
Corpus Christi (Body and Blood of Christ) is a Eucharistic solemnity, or better, the solemn commemoration of the institution of that sacrament. It is, moreover, the Church’s official act of homage and gratitude to Christ, who by instituting the Holy Eucharist gave to the Church her greatest treasure. Holy Thursday, assuredly, marks the anniversary of the institution, but the commemoration of the Lord’s passion that very night suppresses the rejoicing proper to the occasion. Today’s observance, therefore, accents the joyous aspect of Holy Thursday.
The Mass and the Office for the feast was edited or composed by St. Thomas Aquinas upon the request of Pope Urban IV in the year 1264. It is unquestionably a classic piece of liturgical work, wholly in accord with the best liturgical traditions. . . It is a perfect work of art.
Excerpted from The Church’s Year of Grace, Pius Parsch