From the Desk of Father John
The Feast of Corpus Christi
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. I still call it “Corpus Christi,” which is its traditional name and means “The Body of Christ.” Corpus Christi traditionally was celebrated on the Thursday following the Feast of the Holy Trinity. Why a Thursday? The Last Supper – the first celebration of the Eucharist – happened on a Thursday. Yet the Last Supper also begins the Triduum. Rather than be a joyful celebration, Good Friday overshadows the Last Supper. The Church set this Sunday to more joyfully celebrate the Eucharist. Holy Thursday, assuredly, marks the anniversary of the institution, but the commemoration of the Lord’s passion that very night suppresses the rejoicing proper to the occasion. Today’s observance, therefore, accents the joyous aspect of Holy Thursday. The point of this feast is to celebrate the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. We believe that the Body and Blood of Jesus is truly present for us in the Eucharist. It has been tradition of Corpus Christi to have a Eucharistic procession at the end of Mass to heighten the solemnity of this great feast and to augment our reverence for our Eucharistic Lord. Therefore, after the 9.15 AM Mass at Sacred Heart, Perkinsville, our 2026 procession around the cemetery will be led by ALL our children in Faith-Formation Programme. This Eucharist Procession will be a great witness to our Holy Family Catholic Community as to how we value the Body and Blood of Jesus. If there is a feast which ought to be dear to our hearts, to the hearts of the priests, to the hearts of the Catholic Faithful, it is indeed the Feast of the Most Blessed Sacrament. We will affirm our faith in the Holy Eucharist—this faith which today is turned to doubt by the attitude, by the lack of respect that people have for the Most Holy Eucharist, for Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself present under the appearances of bread and wine. We then should affirm more than ever our faith in the Most Holy Eucharist. A Eucharistic procession is a powerful visual reminder that we are called to be Christ-bearers—to take Christ out into the world around us. The gift we have been given to the Holy Eucharist is a gift that is to be shared with others. This feast is one time when our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is exposed not just to the faithful Catholics but to all the world. This is a time when Catholics can show their love for Christ in the Real Presence by honoring Him in a very public way.
Saint Pope John Paul II fiercely pointed that there is today a “crisis of faith” and declining belief in and reverence toward the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Yet we know that the ability to accept this “hard teaching” (cf. Jn. 6:60) is possible only through the gift of faith. Surveys of Catholics in recent years show that today, sadly, around 70% of them do not believe the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. This scripture verse emphasizes the reality of Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.” (John 6: 51-55) The message of John’s Gospel completes the liturgical picture of this great Eucharistic mystery that we are celebrating today… The words of John’s Gospel are the great proclamation of The Eucharist. Anticipating as it were the time even before the Eucharist was instituted, Christ revealed what it was. He spoke thus: “I Am the Living Bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever; and the Bread which I shall give for the life of the world is My Flesh” (John 6:51). And when these words brought protests from many who were listening Jesus added: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you; he who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My Flesh is food indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in me, and I in him.” (John 6:53-56) It is precisely this real presence that provides the believer with eternal life now, in our present lifetime. Whoever eats this bread will have eternal life! We who have been given the bread from Heaven now carry His Life within us. We are sent into the world to carry Jesus to others. We are “living monstrance” called to enthrone the Lord in our hearts and reveal Him in our daily lives to the streets and every corner of our Town and its neighborhood.
This is what the Church means when she speaks of the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist. The risen Christ is present to his Church in many ways, but most especially through the sacrament of his Body and Blood. In other words, during consecration the bread and wine cease to exist, leaving only their appearances cloaking the Real Presence of Christ. The consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. And the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called this change transubstantiation. To let ourselves be nourished by the “Bread of Life,”, “means to be in tune with the heart of Christ, to assimilate his choices, thoughts, and behaviors.” It also means that we enter into “a dynamism of sacrificial love and become persons of peace, forgiveness, reconciliation and sharing in solidarity
Let us join the “School of Mary” the “Woman of the Eucharist” who teaches us how to unite ourselves to the sacrifice of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. She leads us to unite our hearts, like her Immaculate Heart, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, poured out in perfect love of God and of neighbor. With Mary we humbly adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament by acknowledging our absolute dependency on Him. Fr. John
Mission Statement
To live the Great Commandment
Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ And
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Matthew 22: 37-38