This Sunday, June 26, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ - Corpus Christi. The traditional procession will take place at the conclusion of the 10:00am Mass. We take to the streets, showing forth our faith in the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament to the world - or at least to our First Hill neighborhood! And we remind ourselves that Christ is in our midst, leading us, but also walking beside us in all the various paths of our lives.
In a homily on this feast in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI said,
At the end of the Eucharistic celebration we will join in the procession as if to carry the Lord Jesus in spirit through all the streets and neighbourhoods of Rome. We will immerse him, so to speak, in the daily routine of our lives, so that he may walk where we walk and live where we live.
Indeed we know, as the Apostle Paul reminded us in his Letter to the Corinthians, that in every Eucharist, also in the Eucharist this evening, we "proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (cf. I Cor 11: 26). We travel on the highways of the world knowing that he is beside us, supported by the hope of being able to see him one day face to face, in the definitive encounter.
