Corpus Christi Sequence and Artwork

The painting is The Institution of the Eucharist by the Flemish artist
Joos van Wassenhove, c.1474

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19

From the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales:

SEQUENCE : LAUDA SION
On certain days the Church wished to prolong the joy of the Alleluia, or the sorrow and penance expressed in the verses of the Tract which sometimes replaces it, and so a hymn or psalm called the Sequence was added. There are five Sequences in the 1962 Missal which are as follows :

Victimae Paschali for Easter Sunday thought to have been composed about 1048;
Veni Sancte Spiritu for Pentecost, to Pope Innocent III about 1198;
Lauda Sion for Corpus Christ composed by St Thomas Aquinas about 1274;
Stabat Mater for the Feast of the Sorrowful Mother composed about 1306;
Dies Irae in Masses for the Dead (Missae Defunctorum) composed about 1250.

These Sequences, hallowed by centuries of continued use, abound in poetic beauty and doctrinal orthodoxy, as we can see from reading the incomparable Lauda Sion reproduced in full below. Their disappearance from the liturgy of the Mass is a loss to the Church which has never been made good. For many Catholics today the Corpus Christi procession, accompanied by the chanting of Lauda Sion, the beautiful hymn to the Blessed Sacrament, was an unforgettable highlight of the feast day. It still brings back memories of the lengths to which the Church was prepared to go to lavish praise and honour on the Blessed Sacrament which is to be adored in the most solemn manner. We recall the priest carrying the Host under a richly ornamented canopy, the path before him strewn with flowers over which the Son of God was to pass, the seemingly endless procession of the faithful following behind, and the strains of Lauda Sion surging heavenwards.

Click here to read this beautiful sequence by
St. Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi.