Our Lord is in the Blessed Sacrament to receive from men the same homage he received from those who had the happiness of coming close to him during his mortal life. He is there to give everybody the opportunity of offering a personal homage to his sacred humanity. Were this the only reason for the Eucharist it should make us very happy; for the Eucharist enables us as Christians to pay our respects to our Lord in person. This presence is the justification of public worship as well as the life of it. If you take away the Real Presence, how will you be able to pay his most sacred humanity the respect and honor which are its due?... Without this presence, divine worship becomes an abstraction. Through this presence we go straight to God and approach him as during his mortal life. How unfortunate it would be if, in order to honor the humanity of Jesus Christ, we were obliged to go back eighteen centuries! That is all very well for the mind, but how pay an outward homage to so distant a past? We would content ourselves with giving thanks for the mysteries without actively participating in them.

But with the Eucharist we can actually come and adore him like the shepherds; we can prostrate ourselves before him like the Magi; we need no longer regret our not having been present at Bethlehem or Calvary. (St. Peter Julian Eymard, The Real Presence, Eymard League)

The Real Presence Through The Ages
Fr. Michael L. Gaudoin-Parker