Last Thursday, at the Mass at the Latern Basilica in advance of the Blessed Sacrament Procession through the streets of Rome to the Liberian Basilica, Our Holy Father the Pope gave a homily in Italian of which this is a translated extract:
"St. Leo the Great reminds us that "our participation in the Body and Blood of Christ leads to nothing other than to become that which we receive" (sermo 12, De Passione, 2,7, PL54). If this is true for every Christian, it is so for an even greater reason for us priests. To be the Eucharist! Let this very thing be our constant desire and task, so that at the offering of the Body and Blood of the Lord, we accomplish on the altar, there comes also the sacrifice of our existence. Every day, we draw from the Body and Blood of the Lord that free and pure love which makes us worthy minister of Christ and witnesses to His joy. And this is what the faithful are waiting for from the priest: the example, indeed, of an authentic devotion for the Eucharist; the love to see him spend time in long pauses of silence and of adoration before Jesus as did the Cure of Ars, whom we will remember in a special way during this now imminent Priestly Year."
"St. Leo the Great reminds us that "our participation in the Body and Blood of Christ leads to nothing other than to become that which we receive" (sermo 12, De Passione, 2,7, PL54). If this is true for every Christian, it is so for an even greater reason for us priests. To be the Eucharist! Let this very thing be our constant desire and task, so that at the offering of the Body and Blood of the Lord, we accomplish on the altar, there comes also the sacrifice of our existence. Every day, we draw from the Body and Blood of the Lord that free and pure love which makes us worthy minister of Christ and witnesses to His joy. And this is what the faithful are waiting for from the priest: the example, indeed, of an authentic devotion for the Eucharist; the love to see him spend time in long pauses of silence and of adoration before Jesus as did the Cure of Ars, whom we will remember in a special way during this now imminent Priestly Year."
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar!
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