This most holy Body retains its Marian origin

On the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, our joyful thanks go to the Father, who gave us the Divine Word, the Living Bread from heaven, and also to the Virgin, who offered to the Lord the innocent Flesh and the precious Blood that we receive at the altar ... This Divine Body and Blood retains its maternal origin, from Mary. It was she who prepared this Body and Blood before offering them to the Word, as a gift from the entire human family, so that the Word would be its recipient, becoming High Priest and Victim.

At the root of the Eucharist therefore we find the virginal and maternal life of Mary, her overflowing experience of God, and her journey of faith and love, which through the work of the Holy Spirit made of her flesh a temple and of her heart an altar: for she conceived not according to nature, but through faith, by a free and conscious act of obedience. And if the Body that we eat and the Blood that we drink are the priceless gifts of the Risen Lord for us, they will always retain within themselves, as a fragrant Bread, the taste and aroma of the Virgin Mother.

Saint John Paul II

Angelus of June 5, 1983, on the solemnity of Corpus Christi