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The feast of Corpus Christi brings with it an incredible variety of expressions of belief in and love for Christ truly present in the Holy Eucharist.

The church gives us one of only four sequences, sacred poems recited at Mass just before the Gospel. Today we hear the Sequence “Lauda Sion Salvatorem,” or “Praise, O Zion, your Savior,” which both gives thanks to God for the gift of Christ’s Real Presence and explains to us the basic doctrines of the Eucharist and its effects in us. Many of our parishes will have not only adoration, but also processions with the Blessed Sacrament, either around the church grounds or perhaps even in the local neighborhood. Pope Benedict XVI summed up the impression these practices gave him growing up, saying that Corpus Christi felt like a royal visit. Today Christ the King comes to walk through my town, through my streets, to come see me where I live.

This intuition, that Christ cares even for the little and ordinary things of my daily life, enough to come make a royal visit to my little corner of the world, is absolutely based in truth. The Lord does indeed come to find us where we are. Of course, he not only visits us on Corpus Christi, but is always present in our churches.

The Lord is just as present in the Eucharist when it is consecrated at daily Mass as at Corpus Christi Mass, at a small mission church as at St. Peter’s in the Vatican, by the hands of a weak priest as by those of a saintly priest, or even the pope. He remains in the tabernacle of just about every active Catholic church, dwelling there just as truly as he dwelt at Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth, Capernaum or Jerusalem.

Indeed, Christ doesn’t just come to visit my home but chooses to share my parish address. This alone would be more incredible and consoling than anything we could dare to hope for as frail human beings, but today’s Gospel shows us that still more is true.

Christ says today: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him … the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” Christ does not just share our neighborhoods by living in our churches; he shares our bodies by living in union with us in his flesh and blood.

In a mysterious but nevertheless very real way, my flesh shares in the Lord’s flesh when I receive Communion well. I do not just become a living tabernacle for the few moments after I receive, but so long as I preserve my friendship with him, I become a real member of his living body. My body becomes his, and his becomes mine. The divine life flowing through Christ begins to flow through me when I receive the Eucharist in the state of grace, and it is this life that keeps me supernaturally alive. So then, as comforting as the ritual reminders of Corpus Christi are, and as important as they are for expressing honor and love for the Blessed Sacrament, as well as re-affirming the truth of Christ’s Real Presence, the full truth is even more astounding. Christ loves us enough to do more than make a royal visit to our towns and parishes. Rather, he makes such a close royal visit to us, in our very flesh, that we become royal ourselves with his own royalty. The realization of just how great this undeserved gift really is should call forth from us the love, gratitude, fidelity and joy that make for a worthy feast day.