Today is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi (celebration of the Body of Christ) in the Roman Catholic tradition. The feast was officially proclaimed by Pope Urban IV in 1263 after being requested by the mystic Juliana of Liège on repeated visions of Christ in which, according to her recorded confessions, the Saviour asked for a celebration of the act of his sublime love to humanity in which he gives life to those who partake in the Holy Communion i.e. The Eucharist or the Mystery of Thanksgiving. St.Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of Catholic intellectuals in history, composed a liturgy for the feast and prepared a hymn that is still sung today in adoration of Christ present in the Eucharist. Thomas was so absorbed by the beauty of the Eucharist that he had a vision after which he said that all what he wrote which amounts to the works of a lifetime of genius is like a straw compared to what was revealed to him. If such a great intellectual could, in humility, confess his utter lack of knowledge of the Mystery of God, and yet fall in so much love of his Saviour and God, how about us who claim to know much?
Here are words of the hymn Pange Lingua
Down in adoration falling,
Lo! the sacred Host we hail,
Lo! o'er ancient forms departing
Newer rites of grace prevail;
Faith for all defects supplying,
Where the feeble senses fail.
To the everlasting Father,
And the Son Who reigns on high
With the Holy Ghost proceeding
Forth from Each eternally,
Be salvation, honor, blessing,
Might and endless majesty.
Amen.
You can listen to the hymn here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
There is more evidence to show our brothers who do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. One of the miracles took place in 700 AD when a Basilian Monk celebrating Mass started to have doubt as to whether Christ could possibly be present in the bread on the altar after consecration. The Miracle of Lanciano took place at the altar. In it the priest saw the bread change into living flesh and the wine change into 5 globules of blood. has been scientifically verified in 1970 by Professor Edoardo Linoli and Professor Bertelli of the University of Siena. In 1973, the World Health Organization appointed a commission to verify Linoli's conclusions. The WHO commissioned work was carried out over 15 months with a total of 500 experiments and came out to the same conclusions of Professors Linoli & Bertelli.
What were the conclusions?
The flesh is real flesh, and the blood is real blood belonging to human species; the flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart; the flesh and blood have the same blood type AB.
The above was documented online (see http://en.wikipedia.org/
The Miracle of the Eucharist in Lanciano:
Let us adore the divine man, The Word, eternally begotten of the Father, whose presence in the Mystery of thanksgiving is available to all in the Eucharist.
