Homily: Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – Cycle A
Friends, as we celebrate this great feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus, I am reminded of one of the more memorable Eucharistic processions in which I participated while I was studying Spanish in Antigua, Guatemala.
There, each of the major parishes take turns throughout the month of June to have their own processions, so there ends up being many opportunities to join in a procession. The Cathedral parish is always the first to hold theirs, of course. In Antigua, they celebrate the feast on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which is the traditional day on which to celebrate it, and the Cathedral Mass and procession was in the morning, which was during my lessons in Spanish. My teacher suggested that we join the celebration so that I could get an idea of how they celebrated these feasts in Latin America. As a devout seminarian, I was happy to agree!
The Mass in the cathedral was celebrated by the bishop, of course. It was beautiful and the cathedral was full of people. Many more were gathered outside to prepare for the procession and the path through the streets was prepared, also. Homes and businesses along the streets were decorated with banners and other festive adornments, and in the streets were “alfombras”—colorful “carpets” made from pine needles, colored sawdust, and flower petals with beautiful designs—placed there solely to be walked on as the procession with the Blessed Sacrament passed over them.
At the time of the consecration, I was fully focused on the altar and ready to adore our Lord made present to us in the form of bread and wine. Then, as the bishop consecrated the bread and showed it to us, I heard it: FOOMP, FOOMP… POP, POP. “Oh my gosh,” I thought, “Someone just blew off fireworks outside the church during Mass! That was so irreverent!” And then, as the bishop consecrated the wine and held it up for us to adore, I heard it again: FOOMP, FOOMP… POP, POP. This second time, my reaction changed. “Oh my gosh,” I thought, “This was intentional. They intended to shoot off fireworks at the consecration. That’s so weird!” At that moment, I knew that my teacher was right: I was about to have an experience of how they celebrated these feasts in Latin America!
As Mass concluded and the procession began, I realized that the fireworks at the consecration was just the beginning. As the bishop crossed the threshold of the door to the cathedral carrying the monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament, he paused and two more fireworks were launched. Then, as the procession made its way through the streets, at regular intervals, fireworks continued to be launched ahead of it. In addition, strips of firecrackers were lit along the sidewalks, usually mere feet from those who were following the procession. All the while musicians were playing songs of Eucharistic devotion and the faithful were singing and praying the rosary or other devotions.
In spite of the fact that all of these loud displays assaulted my cultural sense of reverence—that is, that quiet, reserved displays of devotion are most appropriate—I nonetheless came to recognize an important fact: No one in that city had any doubt who was walking through the streets that day! Or, if they did, they were forced to confront their doubts that day! ///
Today we heard in our first reading these words from the book of Deuteronomy, “Do not forget the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery; who guided you through the vast and terrible desert… and fed you in the desert with manna…” And so, we celebrate this feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus to remember the sacred humanity of Jesus, the Son of God, through which we were redeemed of our sins and restored to friendship with God, and the Blessed Sacrament, the Real Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus, by which we “eat his flesh and drink his blood”—the living bread come down from heaven—and so have life within us. We do this to remember, as Moses commanded the ancient Israelites to do—or, rather, so that we never forget—that the Lord, our God, has brought us out of that place of slavery and fed us with miraculous bread to sustain us on our journey to eternal life. We remember, not just because it is an important doctrine—which, of course, it is—but also because it has implications for everything in our lives.
Friends, Jesus’ challenge to his disciples (and to his skeptics) in the Gospel is one that cannot be ignored. One has either to accept the teaching or to deny it. Ignoring it is not an option. Rather, as Father Luigi Giusani (founder of Communion and Liberation) put it, it is a problem that must be solved. He likens it to a landslide that you encounter while driving along a road on the way to your destination: you cannot simply ignore it. Rather, it is a problem that must be solved if you are to continue on your way to your destination, even as the solution will affect the path you take towards it.
The same is true for the incarnation and for Jesus’ revelation in the gospel today: we cannot simply ignore it. God has entered human history and has said, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” If your destination is “life”, then this revelation becomes a landslide across the road: you have to figure out how to navigate through or around it, and the solution will affect the path by which you continue. In other words, if you say, “I’m going to continue going forward”, then you have to find a way to come to terms with that statement. As you do, you might find that, the way it leads you is different from your original path; and you may even need a guide to direct you other than as you would have chosen. But if you say, “Ah, this is too much; I’m going to turn back”, deciding not to contend with that statement, well then you are no longer pursuing the destination, but your life will be different still. Many of those who heard these words from Jesus turned back from the path (and, thus, away from their destination). Many others, however, confused as they may have been, continued to follow him along the path that this revelation dictated and they entered the life he had promised: albeit through a path that they might never have chosen otherwise.
My brothers and sisters, the Mass that we celebrate today and the processions that are taking place here at All Saints later today, at St. Charles in Peru this morning, and in many other places this Lord’s Day, are our call to confront this problem once again and to push others to do so. When we celebrate any Mass, and even more so when we take the Blessed Sacrament out into the streets, we are performing a profound act of faith: that what we have encountered and what we believe is true—that is, that to follow Jesus and to eat his flesh and drink his blood in the Blessed Sacrament is the solution to the “problem” that God’s incarnation presents. Our task is to make our lives continual encounters with this “problem”–that is, to live in such a way so that the mystery of the incarnation becomes real in us–so that those who may never encounter a Mass or a Eucharistic procession might nonetheless encounter the Incarnate God in a personal way, through us, and, thus, have the chance to choose life—the life that his Body and Blood make possible for us. /// Regardless of how each of us is called to and chooses to do this, I’d like to remind you that fireworks (apparently) are always an available option 😉.
Friends, no matter how God calls us to witness to this truth in our lives, our first task is always this: to worship God “with our whole heart, and with our whole being, and with our whole strength” (Deut 6:5), which begins and ends always here, in the Mass. May our worship today, and our efforts to witness to these truths in our lives–fireworks or not–bring glory to God and salvation to all those around us.
Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN - June 6th & 7th, 2026
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