ROME – A Corpus Christi procession should honor Christ’s gift
of Himself in the Eucharist, but also should be a pledge to
share bread and faith with the people of the cities and towns
where the processions take place, Pope Francis said.
Just as the “breaking of the bread” became the icon of the
early Christian community, giving of oneself in order to
nourish others spiritually and physically should be a sign of
Christians today, the pope said May 26, the feast of the Body
and Blood of Christ.
On a warm spring evening, the pope’s celebration began with
Mass outside Rome’s Basilica of St. John Lateran and was
followed by a traditional Corpus Christi procession from St.
John Lateran to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, one mile
away. Hundreds of members of parish and diocesan
confraternities and sodalities – dressed in blue, brown,
black or white capes and robes – joined the pope for Mass and
made the nighttime walk to St. Mary Major for Eucharistic
benediction with him.
“May this action of the Eucharistic procession, which we will
carry out shortly, respond to Jesus’ command,” he said in his
homily. The procession should be “an action to commemorate
him; an action to give food to the crowds of today; an act to
break open our faith and our lives as a sign of Christ’s love
for this city and for the whole world.”
In every celebration of the Eucharist, the pope said, the
people place simple bread and wine into “poor hands anointed
by the Holy Spirit” and Jesus “gives us his body and his
blood.”
The people’s gifts are an important part of the process, just
as they were when Jesus fed the multitude with five loaves
and two fish, Pope Francis said.
“Indeed,” he said, “it is Jesus who blesses and breaks the
loaves and provides sufficient food to satisfy the whole
crowd, but it is the disciples who offer the five loaves and
two fish.”
“Jesus wanted it this way,” he said. Rather than letting the
disciples send the people away to find food, Jesus wanted the
disciples to “put at his disposal what little they had.”
“And there is another gesture: The pieces of bread, broken by
the holy and venerable hands of Our Lord, pass into the poor
hands of the disciples, who distribute these to the people,”
Pope Francis said.
The miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fish, he
said, “signals what Christ wants to accomplish for the
salvation of all mankind, giving His own flesh and blood. And
yet this needs always to happen through those two small
actions: offering the few loaves and fish which we have;
receiving the bread broken by the hands of Jesus and giving
it to all.”
Later in the Mass, a couple with four children and a
grandmother with her three grandchildren brought the gifts of
bread and wine to the pope for consecration.
Pope Francis urged the crowd gathered on the lawn outside the
basilica to consider all the holy men and women throughout
history who have given their lives, “‘broken themselves,” in
order to nourish others.
“How many mothers, how many fathers, together with the slices
of bread they provide each day on the tables of their homes,
have broken their hearts to let their children grow, and grow
well,” he said. “How many Christians, as responsible
citizens, have broken their own lives to defend the dignity
of all, especially the poorest, the marginalized and those
discriminated!”
The source of strength for such given, he said, is found in
“the Eucharist, in the power of the risen Lord’s love, who
today too breaks bread for us and repeats: ‘Do this in
remembrance of me.'”
