Corpus Christi
Sunday, June 7, 2026
St. James Cathedral

Watch this homily! (begins at 40:16)

 
Friends, today’s celebration of Corpus Christi is a reminder of God’s faithful love. Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel were challenging to some of his followers and they can be challenging for some of us today. But if we can really take his words in, they can be the source and summit of our faith.
 
Source and summit are the words that the Second Vatican Council uses to describe the liturgy. The Mass, and Sunday Eucharist in particular, is where we go to the summit, to the mountaintop, and encounter the love of Christ as the living bread that comes down from heaven. And it is here, Sunday after Sunday, that we derive the source of our strength to walk with the Lord and with each other on the journey of life.
 
The Eucharist not only nourishes us for the journey, but also brings us together as the one Body of Christ. In the Eucharist, the Risen Christ comes to us so that we can feed on him, on the flesh he has given for the life of the world.
 
In the cup of blessing that we bless and the bread we break, we not only participate in the sign of unity of which St. Paul speaks of in the second reading, but that action actually accomplishes what it signifies. We become that one Body of Christ by our eating and drinking together.
 
In the Eucharist, a word that means thanksgiving, we consciously and intentionally remember and give thanks for all that God has done for us individually and as a people. Such remembering and giving thanks is deep in our tradition and is at the very heart of the Eucharist.
 
Today’s passage from the Book of Deuteronomy tells us that this remembering and giving thanks goes back to the very foundation of our faith. As the Israelites are about to enter the promised land, after forty years in the desert, Moses tells the people to remember how the Lord God directed all their journeying and fed them along the way. “Do not forget the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt…who guided you…who brought forth water for you…and fed you in the desert with manna.”
 
Such remembering of God’s faithful love for us can strengthen us in times of difficulty. In those times, whether the difficulty is large or small, remembering all the ways that God has blessed us can be the one thing we need to bring us comfort and strength.
 
A line that my spiritual director uses with me a lot is, “go to gratitude.” That gratitude is rooted in recalling God’s care for me at specific times in my life. The God who was faithful and loving in those times in the past, is the same God who is with me, with us, today.
 
The Eucharist is our best and most intense way “to go to gratitude.” As we recall the Last Supper and Jesus’ self-gift to us on calvary, and God’s faithful love that raised him from death to life, we are plunged once again into that saving act. This very special remembering brings about what we recall. The saving, life-giving  love of God is made present, here and now.
 
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them,” Jesus assures us. He tells us that the one who “eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise them on the last day.”
 
As we come around the Table of the Eucharist today and feast on the one who has come down from heaven, may we be drawn deeper into the unfathomable love that draws us here.
 
As we approach the mountaintop, this summit of our faith today, may we find here the real source of our life. And after having fed on the Body of Christ, may we leave here to become more and more that Body of Christ for the life of the world.

Father Gary F. Lazzeroni