Scripture Reflections for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi

“taking the Blessed Sacrament out of the church in procession is a statement of the belief that the church is there to serve the world. That Christ came for all people, not just catholic and Christians. This liturgical celebration, like all good liturgy, mirrors the service of the church to the world.”

“The sacrament of love is also sacrament of death – Christ’s death through which we come to a new life in the love which is the Holy Spirit, in which we shall live for eternity”

“The Eucharist is the moment now, now in the middle of things, we purposely bring the energy of both beginning and end to now that we might have the courage, energy, the conviction to make our way through this present moment. That's why we celebrate the Corpus Christ”

“Before Jesus performed this miracle on such a grand scale though, He did a very simple thing. He thanked His Father first. This is an important lesson for all of us, because Jesus recognized that all good gifts come from our Heavenly Father.”

“We too often see the Mass as commonplace, as just something we should just do and yes, too often we don’t treat it and seek Him with the desire, and yearning, and love that He truly requires”

“We need forgiveness, and God gives us glory. We need to be restored to our humanity, and God gives us a share in His own, divine life. We need spiritual support to turn us from a self-destructive life, and God feeds us with Himself, moulding us into the image of His beloved Son.”

“I find myself asking, 'what are my loaves and fish? My small offering in my family, relationships, neighborhood, workplace?' And then I ask God to help me discern the Spirit's presence and leading in my blessedness and brokenness daily and dutifully in prayer.”

“Believing in Christ in the Eucharist teaches us to look at the world through the eyes of faith. Jesus is present in the Bread, and with the eyes of faith we know also that he is present in our brothers and sisters, the migrant and the outcast, and that we, his people, divided in so many ways, are somehow also made one through his love.”

“a covenant, in the ancient world, was essentially a conferral of kinship via an oath. The Eucharist confers divine kinship in the most direct way possible, by placing within us the very body and blood of God.”

“This is the other side of Corpus Christi: it isn’t supposed to just be Jesus who gives himself up. We, too, are to offer our loaves and fishes, our tithes, our hearts on the altar.”

“So, as we partake of the Eucharist at Mass today, let us make this a truly human action, a sacramental action and a divine action.”

“Given the critical importance of the global environmental crisis, a re-reading of the Corpus Christi story in this context raises questions not only of the need to address food shortages and world hunger, but of how closely connected those issues are to measures to protect the environment all around our global village.”

“To celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi is not only to celebrate the reality of the body and blood we receive at communion, but to acknowledge that through this gift we become ourselves members of that body of Christ in the world”

“His body and blood sacramentally present are not primarily for adoration but for usage, to take and eat and drink. Jesus’s hunger to give love is expressed by having himself thus for us who reciprocally hunger and thirst for him.”

“this paschal mystery is given to us not just as an activity we have to live out, but as a mystery we must become”

“in our fallen sinful world we need psychologically and spiritually ways to express our contrition, our sorrow. The fact that we have altars in our churches, that priests come out in the vestment of temple priests and they perform a sacrifice on that altar, the holy sacrifice of the Mass, that's exceptionally important”

“God doesn't need our petty sacrifices but, but it pleases him to receive them for they are an expression of justice. They make us just. They establish the right relationship between us and God.”

“The Church is not an organization like that. The Church is an organism, it's a living thing. Christ is its head and its life. Christ is the life force that holds together a body. There's the great image: the Corpus Christi, the body of Christ.”