Today’s celebration of the Body and Blood of the Lord originated in the Diocese of Liege in 1246 as the feast of Corpus Christi. In the reforms of Vatican II, Corpus Christi was joined with the feast of the Precious Blood (July 1) to become the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Today we celebrate Christ’s gift of the Eucharist, the source and summit of our life together as the Church. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) declared that we must honor Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist publicly so those who observed the faith of the Catholics in the Most Holy Eucharist might be attracted to the Eucharistic Lord and believe in the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ present in this Sacrament.

“The Catholic Church teaches that in the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of the God-man are really, truly, substantially, and abidingly present together with His Soul and Divinity by reason of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. This takes place in the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass.”

Our belief in this Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist derives from the literal interpretation of the promise of Christ to give his Body and Blood as our spiritual food and drink, as found in St. John’s Gospel and also in the four independent accounts of the fulfillment of this promise at the Last Supper (Mt. 26; Mk. 14; Lk. 22; 1 Cor. 11).

Eucharistic theologians explain the real presence by a process called transubstantiation: the entire “substance” of bread and wine is changed into the glorified Body and Blood of Christ, retaining only the “accidents” (taste, color, shape) of bread and wine.