C&SI - Reflecting on Corpus Christi - 7 June 2026 (S06E29b) (podcast excerpt)

As we move into Ordinary Time, this Sunday in Ireland we have the beautiful feast of Corpus Christi. So on this week's programme excerpt, we bring out a reflection from our old colleague Lorraine Buckley who shares with us some thoughts on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi originally in 2019. 

Lorraine's reflection on Corpus Christi begins by taking us through a history of the feast which owes its existence to Blessed Juliana of Liege, who began devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in around 1230. Largely through her insistence, in 1264 Pope Urban IV commanded its observance by the universal church. While the Church celebrates the Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday because it falls within the solemn and reflective time of the Easter Triduum, Juliana wanted to encourage a joyful celebration of this great gift of our Divine Master to the Church and to the world.  The Feast sums up three important confessions about our Faith. First is that God became physically present in the person of Christ, True God and True Man. Secondly, God continues to be present in His people as they form the Mystical Body of Christ in his church. And thirdly, the presence of God under the form of bread and wine is made available to us on the altar at Mass and preserved there for our nourishment and worship. Lorraine also reflects on why the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is so important to us through the Eucharistic hymns of the Tantum Ergo, Ave Verum Corpus, and Godhead Here in Hiding (Adoro Te Devote).