Jesus offers Himself as a Victim for us on the altar in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Unbloody Representation of Calvary. Jesus comes to us as Food in His Sacrament of Union when the priest distributes Holy Communion. Jesus stays with us as a Divine Guest in the Tabernacle for Benediction or visits to Him.
In 1264 Pope Urban IV established the new feast of Corpus Christi as direct result of a revelation made by Our Lord to Blessed Juliana of Cornillon, a sister, that a feast of glory and splendour be established in honour of the Most Blessed Sacrament to combat growing disbelief in the Real Presence.
The Pope requested St. Bonaventure, the Superior General of the Franciscans, and St. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, to submit drafts of an Office and Mass for the new feast. On the day of the judging, done by the Pope himself, St. Thomas read his text, and tears fell from the eyes of both the Pope and St. Bonaventure who tore his own composition into shreds.
Everything was perfect and beautiful and nothing remained to say.
In England and Wales, because this great feast is not a Holy Day of Obligation, it is solemnised on the Sunday by way of the ability to celebrate an external solemnity - in many places a Corpus Christi procession will take place.
These processions outside the church are conducted to confront the faithful with their obligation to spread the Faith among unbelievers. Perhaps some onlookers might comment that we are eccentric or fanatical when processing behind the Blessed Sacrament in streets, but Our Lord has promised the forgiveness of many sins for those who profess Him before unbelievers and overcome human respect. Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is an ocean of beauty and goodness, a burning furnace of charity toward us. It is the treasury of every blessing that can make us happy on earth and in Heaven. Let us then love His Heart with tenderness and gratitude and seek our joy and consolation from It!