Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ [Corpus Christi], Year A (June 7, 2026)

 

When I was in second grade, my teacher, Sister Maria Goretti, told our class a story as she prepared us for First Communion. I have never forgotten it.

In the days of ancient Rome, when Christians were still persecuted for their faith, the Eucharist was often celebrated in secret, hidden in the catacombs beneath the city. Believers gathered quietly in the shadows, risking everything for the Lord’s Supper.

After one such celebration, a young Christian named Marcus emerged carrying a small pouch. Inside was the Blessed Sacrament, entrusted to him so he could bring Communion to his sick sister at home.

Before he could reach the village, he was surrounded by a gang of Roman boys led by the bully Romulus. They mocked him, shoved him, and demanded to know what he was hiding.

Romulus grabbed the pouch, opened it, and laughed.

“Why, it’s just a piece of bread! This lowlife is risking his life for a piece of bread!”

As the boys beat Marcus, his Christian friends finally rushed in and drove the gang away. Bruised and bleeding, Marcus pressed the pouch into the hands of his friend Justus.

“This is Jesus,” he whispered. “Bring him to my sister.”

As they carried him back to safety, Marcus said softly, almost to himself:

“Just a piece of bread. If only they knew. If only they knew…”

That line has stayed with me all these years. Corpus Christi invites us into that same mystery.

Like last Sunday’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, the Eucharist is not something we solve like a mathematical problem. We can spend endless energy trying to explain the “how” of transubstantiation and still find ourselves standing before a mystery too deep for words.

Perhaps today is better spent contemplating the “why.”

Why would Christ choose bread?

Why would the eternal Son of God remain with us in something so ordinary, so humble, so easily overlooked?

Because love always chooses nearness.

In today’s Gospel from John 6, Jesus does not soften his words:

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

And when people question him – “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” – Jesus does not retreat. He goes deeper.

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” 

This is not metaphor for Jesus. This is covenant. This is gift. This is communion.

He points us back to the manna in the desert, recalled in today’s First Reading from Deuteronomy. God fed Israel with bread from heaven during their long journey through the wilderness. But that manna was only preparation, only promise.

Christ now gives us the true Bread from Heaven – not simply food for the road, but his very self.

The Eucharist is not a symbol of Christ’s presence. It is Christ’s presence.

Through centuries of doubt, persecution, misunderstanding, and even division among Christians, the Church has held fast to this mystery: that on our altars, heaven touches earth.

Many still look and see only bread. But faith teaches us to kneel.

Faith teaches us to recognize the living Christ hidden in humility.

Faith teaches us to whisper, with Marcus: “If only they knew.”

And perhaps our task as church musicians, ministers, and disciples is not merely to explain the mystery, but to help others encounter it – to sing it, to reverence it, to carry it into the world with awe. 

Because the Eucharist is never “just a piece of bread.”

It is Jesus.

And that changes everything.