Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ 2021

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
June 6, 2021

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

We celebrate today the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.

This is the great mystery of our faith, the great gift of God that he gives us in the Body and Blood of Christ, made present in the bread and wine we offer on the altar in the Holy Mass.

When we reflect on it, we are amazed to realize that the living God, the maker of heaven and earth, comes to be in a relationship with us, with you and me.

How can this be? And why? Why does God care? Billions of people, scattered everywhere in the world. And God loves all of us, he wants to be in friendship with each one of us, personally.

That’s the mystery we celebrate today — and in every Eucharist. 

Those beautiful words that Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel, give us the whole meaning of life and the whole meaning of history. “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”

Human history is divine history, it is God’s story not ours! It is the history of salvation, the love story of God’s love for the human race. And this story includes you and me and every soul.

I think in this generation, especially in this last year or so, God is calling us back, he’s calling us to go deeper in our relationship with him. I think we are all being called to experience a new awakening to the reality of God and his love for us. 

This is the whole truth, pure and simple: God loves you. You! Not “all people in general.” But you, personally. He made you because he wanted you to be here. He made you for a reason and he has a beautiful plan of love for your life.

That’s why he sent Jesus Christ into the world — to show us the face of God and to show us the path to true love and happiness.

Jesus became flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary in order to give his flesh on the cross for the life of the world, and for the life of every person.

When we say the Creed each week in the Mass, this is what we mean. But we need to allow these words to penetrate our hearts! What we believe must shape who we are and how we live!

My brothers and sisters, it is time for all of us to start thinking more deeply about our lives. Our lives are not random or casual.

We can get so caught up in the anxieties of daily living, in all the “busy-ness” of the everyday, that we forget this truth: Jesus shed his blood for us, for each one of us.

This great feast of Corpus Christi tells us that all the sacrifices and rituals down through the ages — the “holocausts and … young bulls” that Moses offers in today’s first reading; “the blood of goats” in the second reading — all of these sacrifices fade away and find their true meaning in the sacrifice of Jesus.

As we hear from the Letter to the Hebrews today: “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.”

So, two practical things you should remember every time you come to Mass.

First, your life is worth so much to God. You are precious to him. He gave his Body and Blood for you. In the offering of the bread and wine, Our Lord’s sacrifice for you is made present again before your eyes — so we never forget this beautiful truth of God’s love.

Second, he loves you so much that he comes now to give you his Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

Jesus thirsts for your love and he knows that you hunger for his love. So, in his humility he gives us his Body and Blood to be your daily bread!

We need to learn to live from this daily bread, my brothers and sisters. And we need to allow the Eucharist to transform us.

The Eucharist is our destiny. We are born in our humanity, but we are destined to take part in his divinity.

As the offerings of bread and wine are changed into his Body and Blood, Jesus wants to change us through this sacrament. As he humbled himself to share in our humanity, in the Eucharist he is calling us to share in his divinity.

He gives us this gift, and we must do our part by offering everything we do to God, just as Jesus did.

We heard in the Gospel today: “He took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take it; this is my body.’”

In the same way, we need to take what we have and offer it to God, and to give ourselves to others in the service of love.

The Eucharist is meant to change us, but the Eucharist is also meant to change the world, to be the foundation of a new civilization of love.

As the gifts of bread and wine, the fruit of the earth and work of human hands, are changed, so is the way we see creation, the way regard one another.

The encounter with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist leads us to the encounter with Jesus Christ in our neighbors, in our daily lives.

As we find Jesus “hidden” under the appearances of bread and wine, the Eucharist helps us to sense his hidden presence in the people we meet every day.

As we grow in our devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, we start to see other people in a new light — as our brothers and sisters and the image of God. In every face, we can see the face of Christ.

So on this holy day, let us ask Our Lord to awaken the eyes of our hearts — to really know how much God loves us and how important we are to him.

Let us ask Our Lord today, to help us to love the Eucharist with greater intensity and to increase our desire to be in his presence and to live by the bread that he gives us.

May our Blessed Mother Mary, in whom the Word became flesh, help us to make the Eucharist and the Holy Mass the center of our lives.

1. Readings: Exod. 24:3-8; Ps. 116:12-13, 15-18; Heb. 9:11-15; Mark 14:12-16, 22-26.