June 22, 2025

Corpus Christi Sunday

by Fr. Boniface Endorf, OP

Dear St. Joseph Parish Family,

This Sunday we celebrate Corpus Christi, or the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. We celebrate Christ’s gift of Himself—feeding us on His own Body in the Eucharist. We receive the grace we need to live our Christian lives through Christ’s sharing of Himself with us. This sacrificial love of Christ teaches us what charity is and gives us the ability to love as Christ loves. Without it, the Church, and we, would starve. That’s why we’re required, according to the Third Commandment, to attend Mass every Sunday—to keep the sabbath holy. It’s so that the Lord can fill us with His grace, to spiritually feed us. And with that strength we can live the Christian life, growing as children of God, making our way to heaven.

In honor of Christ’s Most Holy Body and Blood, we process with the Eucharist on Corpus Christi, at our 11:30am Mass. Just as the Eucharist strengthens us to live our Faith in the world, so we take Christ, present in the Eucharist, into the world, praying that His salvation be accomplished.

There is a Dominican connection to this feast too: the sequence sung at Mass before the Gospel was written by St. Thomas Aquinas. It’s beautiful and worth pondering on this holy feast:

Sion, lift thy voice and sing:
Praise thy Savior and thy King;
Praise with hymns thy Shepherd true:
Dare thy most to praise Him well;
For He doth all praise excel;
None can ever reach His due.
Special theme of praise is Thine,
That true living Bread divine,
That life-giving flesh adored,
Which the brethren twelve received,
As most faithfully believed,
At the Supper of the Lord.
Let the chant be loud and high;
Sweet and tranquil be the joy
Felt to-day in every breast;
On this festival divine
Which recounts the origin
Of the glorious Eucharist.

Have a blessed Corpus Christi!
Fr. Boniface