OCR Text |
Show CORPUS CHRIST!. ) The feast of Corpus Christi was celebrated last Thursday. This feast commemorates the institution institu-tion of the Holy Eucharist, which took place on Holy Thursday, but which is not celebrated with pomp and solemnity on that day, because, occuring as it does in Holy Week, all the 'Church services, from plaintive lamentation of the Tenbrac to the unveiling of the cross on Good Friday, are commemorative com-memorative of the Passion of Christ. To the Catholic Cath-olic mind the institution of the Holy Eucharist was the richest legacy left by Christ to his followers. fol-lowers. The promises made by him during his lifetime life-time were fulfilled at the Last Supper. At Caphar-nauni Caphar-nauni he told his apostles and disciples: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.' His followers fol-lowers understood him to mean what he said, and. to confirm their understanding, he repeated and reiterated with strongest vasscrvation, "Amen. amen,' what he first said. Their objection to his requirement did not change his position. At the Last. Supper he carried out his promise when he took bread, blessed it and said: "This is my body." The language used could not be plainer nor more simple. Yet the doctrine contained in the promise and words of the institution has been denied by all forms of heresy. To confuse and refute the various vari-ous interpretations given to the words of Our Lord a celebrated artist conceived the idea of painting on canvas a picture of Christ seated at the Last Supper. In the same picture Luther and Zwinlius were also portrayed. Beneath the picture were inscribed in-scribed these words u "Christ says: 'This is my body.' Luther says: 'This will become my body.' Zwihglius says: 'This symbolizezs my body.' As an object, lesson the picture, which was hung in Abbey Ab-bey church of Ottobeuren, Bavaria, was more cogent cog-ent and convincing as an argument in favor of the. sacrament to the Holy Eucharist than volumes written on the subject. The feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ) recalls this glorious event, aud shows the unchangeable character of the church founded by Christ in retaining it, through all the vicissitudes of times and variations of heresies, here-sies, for twenty centuries. ' |