In the solemnity of the body and blood of Christ, in which the Catholic Church celebrates the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, Pope Leo XIV said that God’s gifts “grow the more they are shared.”
Before the faithful gathered in the Plaza de San Pedro to listen to the Angelus, the Holy Father focused his message on the deep meaning of the Eucharist and on the sharing value. Commenting on the Gospel of the day, which recounts the miracle of breads and fish (cf. Lc 9,11-17), the Pontiff said that “God’s gifts, even the little ones, grow the more they are shared.”
Receive the main news of ACI Press by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social networks. Subscribe to our free channels today:
Thus, he explained that “the miracle, beyond prodigy, is a sign” that refers to a deeper reality. “In the root of every human sharing there is a bigger one that precedes it: that of God towards us,” he said.
“He, the creator, who gave us life, to save us asked one of his creatures to be his mother, to assume a fragile, limited, mortal body, like ours,” recalled the Holy Father.
Similarly, he stressed that God chosen sharing “until his last consequences” the poverty of men, “choosing to use, to redeem us, precisely how little we could offer him.”
Referring to the Eucharistic mystery, he pointed out that “in the Eucharist, between us and God, this happens: the Lord welcomes, sanctifies and blesses the bread and wine we put on the altar, together with the offering of our life, and transforms them into the body and blood of Christ, sacrifice of love for the salvation of the world.”
“God binds to us welcoming with joy what we present to him and invites us to unite him receiving and sharing with equal joy his gift of love,” he added.
Leo XIV quoted St. Augustine to underline the community meaning of this sacrament: “As the set of many grains has become a single bread, thus in the concord of charity a single body of Christ is formed.”
At the end of the Angelus, the Pope recalled the procession that will take him to the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor, scheduled after the celebration at 5:00 p.m. (local time) of the Mass in the Basilica of San Juan de Letán, the Pope’s cathedral as Bishop of Rome: “We will celebrate the Holy Mass together and then we will put ourselves on the way, carrying the Blessed Sacrament through the streets of our city”.
“We will sing, we will pray and, finally, we will meet in the Basilica of Santa María la Mayor to implore the blessing of the Lord about our homes, our families and all humanity,” he announced.
He concluded his reflection by inviting the faithful to be transformed by the Eucharist: “That this celebration is a luminous sign of our commitment to be carriers of communion and peace for each other, in sharing and charity.”
Victoria Cardiel
Victoria Cardiel is a journalist specialized in social and religious information issues. Since 2013, he has covered all the news of the Vatican for various media, such as the Spanish news agency Europa Press, or the weekly of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Alfa and Omega.