May 30-31, 2026
Dear parishioners,
With next weekend being the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, please consider joining us for our annual Eucharistic procession following the 10:30 Mass. We will process out of the church at the end of Mass, process through the streets, and return to the church for benediction. After benediction, there will be a light lunch provided in the church basement.
As many of you already know, the size of our procession might not rival one that flows through the streets of New York City, but it is still beautiful nonetheless. No offering made from a sincere heart is too small for Our Lord! Just as kings in the Middle Ages would occasionally make a “tour” of their kingdom, so here Jesus will be doing exactly that. By processing with Jesus through only a few of our streets, we are proclaiming him truly as the King of kings throughout our whole parish territory.
As such, this firstly means that we give Jesus permission to have dominion over every aspect of our lives. By processing with him through our streets, we are openly showing the “world” who it is we serve, and who it is that is the source and summit of all that we do here on earth. If there is any aspect of our lives that we have not yet allowed him fully into, then the Solemnity of Corpus Christi is the perfect day for us to once again ask Jesus to come and have dominion over it. When we do, we will find that we have more freedom when we submit to the gentle yoke of Christ, which keeps us on the narrow path which leads to eternal life. We will also find that the Lord is very generous with the graces he gives. When we make an offering to him from our heart, he returns more to us than we can ever give him. In this regard, he is good at surprising us too; the graces he grants are not always what we think they will be, and they do not always come to us in the ways we think they will!
Secondly, as we process with the Blessed Sacrament next Sunday, we are also mindful to lift up to him all those in our county who have fallen away from the reception of the sacraments and the practice of the Catholic faith in general. Whether you join us in procession or not, please offer some prayers (and not only on next Sunday!) for those who have fallen away from the sacraments. We can be assured that Jesus is seeking them out; he even says so in the Gospel when he exclaims that he came to seek out the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 15:24). For our part, we pray that the Lord will remove whatever obstacles in people’s hearts, minds, and lives are preventing them from returning to the sacraments. We pray also that these same people will respond to the graces being granted them by the merits of our prayers. As I just mentioned above, Jesus is very generous in the graces he grants, so we can trust that he can work with even the most hardened hearts. After all, he did this masterfully so many times in the Gospels! Of course, we also offer the same prayers for those who have never yet encountered the sacraments of the Church. We want them too to have the great gifts we have been given.
On a final note, we also process through the streets with the Blessed Sacrament on Corpus Christi as one way of making reparation for the offenses committed, directly or indirectly, against the Blessed Sacrament. In fact, this aspect of the solemnity is tied into the very reason this feast day was added to the Church’s calendar centuries ago. Tragically, a priest travelling through Bolsena, Italy, was having serious doubts about the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. While he was celebrating Mass, the consecrated host began to bleed onto the corporal. Pope Urban IV eventually confirmed the miracle and knew that he needed to address the issue because, sadly, unbelief in the Real Presence had become widespread in the Church at that point in time. So, he inaugurated the solemnity of Corpus Christi in 1264 as a way to rejuvenate the faithful in the Church’s unwavering faith in the Eucharist.
What a timely message for our own day! We cannot help but lament the lack of belief in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist in our own time. The feast of Corpus Christi is a reminder to all of us of the tremendous gift that is given to us in Holy Communion. Even for us who are firm in this belief, it is still a reminder for us to not approach Communion casually, as if it were equal to anything else we do in the day. Indeed, receiving Jesus’ body and blood in Communion is the most sacred action that we can perform on earth!
O sacrament most holy, O sacrament divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine!
Fr. Ammanniti
