Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) on June 22, 2025, at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Chicago, IL. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Genesis 14:18-20; Psalm 110; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; and Luke 9:11b-17.

Fourteen years ago, I spent the summer in Antigua, Guatemala, one of the most Catholic cities in the world. Today’s feast, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, isn’t just a day in Guatemala; it’s a season! Even with the very casual culture in the heat and humidity of Guatemala, people wear suits and dresses for Corpus Christi processions. Children dress up as angels, distributing rose petals before the Blessed Sacrament as it makes its way to little altars erected in homes and business throughout each neighborhood.

Today’s readings speak of big expectations placed upon humble bread and wine.

Our first reading is about Abram’s thanksgiving after his nephew Lot is rescued from imprisonment by warring kings.

Our second reading is the oldest written record of the Last Supper. But St. Paul recalls Jesus’ actions to condemn the rich Corinthian Christians for not treating the poor ones as equal members of the Body of Christ.

And finally, in Luke’s account of the feeding of the 5,000, the emphasis is on the people being fed by such minuscule, unremarkable resources.

At every Mass, we, too, offer simple bread and wine. God transforms it into something extraordinary which we receive back into our bodies. Let us give thanks for God’s merciful gift!

The people of the Galilee, hungering for more of Jesus’ life-giving message, were inadequately prepared for their physical hunger. Somehow, through the willingness of the Twelve to share their five ordinary loaves and two ordinary fish, and through an extraordinary act by Jesus, 5,000 poor men — not counting the 15,000 women and children who were likely with them — were blessed with abundance. Maybe we can think of this miracle as a demonstration of what Jesus had preached to them three chapters earlier in the Gospel of Luke: we should give to everyone who asks of us no matter how worthy we think they are, the fruits we produce will demonstrate whether we are generous or miserly, and the poor will be blessed and the rich will be cursed.

The Galileans who gathered to hear Jesus speak may have been poor, but they lived in a world of abundance. They gathered near Bethsaida, the village at the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee where the Jordan River flows into the sea. Even today, the Sea of Galilee is teeming with life. It supplies a large percentage of the nation of Israel’s drinking water. Fishermen still successfully ply the waters two thousand years later, as flocks of birds fly overhead. Farmland abounds in the area.

Interestingly, the Jordan River also supplies water to another major body of water. The river flows out of the southern end of the Sea of Galilee and continues more than 50 miles until it empties into the Dead Sea. Why is the Dead Sea dead? It has no outlet. It keeps everything that flows into it, eventually becoming a briny mess as the water evaporates. To have life, as to have love, one must be able to give to others as well as to receive from them.

That’s what Eucharist is about, isn’t it? It’s about love. It’s about sharing. It’s about gratitude. It’s about trusting that God will provide for us in the future, so that we can provide for others today. Even if we think the bread and the wine we offer at Mass is ordinary, God can make it extraordinary. Abram, the wealthy patriarch, gave an extraordinary ten percent of his possessions to the priest who offered ordinary bread and wine in thanksgiving to God. Paul chastised the wealthy Corinthian Christians for not recognizing the ordinary poor members of their community as the extraordinary members of the Body of Christ that they were.

Throughout the ages, we hear about many miracles when people provided for others even when it seemed as if there wasn’t enough to go around. Think of Hanukkah. Think of the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath. From the time of Abram nearly 4,000 years ago, God has provided. What makes us think that God won’t provide in the future?

Because we’re nervous. We only want to trust God when there are no other options. Jesus taught us to pray for our bread daily. Personally, I’d prefer to ask once, and have God give me a lifetime supply up front.

Corpus Christi may traditionally be a day to urge people to receive the Blessed Sacrament daily or weekly throughout their lives, but I couldn’t do that when I celebrated this solemnity 12 years ago. That day, I was presiding at one of the first Masses ever held in the Knox County Detention Center in Tennessee. The men at Mass were probably going to be in prison for at least twenty years. And if they were going to be sentenced to jails in Tennessee — the least Catholic state in the nation — it was unlikely that they’d ever have the opportunity to receive the Eucharist again. How could I preach about the centrality of receiving communion?

In the twelve years since the Catholic ministry began at the maximum security prison in Knox County, some amazing things have happened. One of the first inmates to be sentenced kept in correspondence with the guys who continued to gather each week for Bible study. Even though these guys only occasionally received the Blessed Sacrament while waiting to be sentenced, they definitely grew in their sense of communion with one another. One of the volunteers who helped at Mass subsequently became a Catholic deacon.

What is ordinary and what is extraordinary? What is generous and what is miserly? I imagine that Jesus would have harsh things to say about our current budget debates. So many Americans live in food-insecure households, and yet Congress is poised to impose conditions more stringent on the people receiving food benefits than on the wealthy people receiving tax credits. Billions of people around the world are malnourished, and yet our government has decided that we should spend more money on bombs and less money on food assistance. As Jesus preached, it is by our fruits that our intentions will be made known.

Today, and every day, may we be grateful for the extraordinary, life-giving, life-sharing, life-changing miracle of the Eucharist. And may we, in turn, become bread for others.