Entries

Body and Blood of Christ (A)

June 07, 2026

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Introit

Collect

O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament
have left us a memorial of your Passion,
grant us, we pray,
so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood
that we may always experience in ourselves
the fruits of your redemption.
Who live and reign with God the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Reading Deuteronomy 8:2–3, 14b–16a

Moses spoke to the people: 2 “Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 14 “Do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, 16 and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good.”

Responsorial Psalm

R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

Second Reading 1 Corinthians 10:16–17

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. The word of the Lord.

Sequence Lauda, Sion

Laud O Zion, your salvation, Laud with hymns of exultation,

Christ, your king and shepherd true:

Bring him all the praise you know, He is more than you bestow.
   Never can you reach his due.

Special theme for glad thanksgiving, Is the quick’ning and the living
   Bread today before you set:

From his hands of old partaken, As we know, by faith unshaken,
   Where the Twelve at Supper met.

Full and clear ring out your chanting. Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,
    From your heart let praises burst:

For today the feast is holden, When the institution olden
   Of that supper was rehearsed.

Here the new law’s new oblation, By the new king’s revelation,
   Ends the form of ancient rite:

Now the new the old effaces, Truth away the shadow chases,
   Light dispels the gloom of night.

What he did at supper seated, Christ ordained to be repeated,
    His memorial ne’er to cease:

And his rule for guidance taking, Bread and wine we hallow, making
   Thus our sacrifice of peace.

This the truth each Christian learns, Bread into his flesh he turns,
   To his precious blood the wine:

Sight has fail’d, nor thought conceives, But a dauntless faith believes,
   Resting on a pow’r divine.

Here beneath these signs are hidden, Priceless things to sense forbidden;
   Signs, not things are all we see:

Blood is poured and flesh is broken, Yet in either wondrous token
   Christ entire we know to be.

Whoso of this food partakes, Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;
   Christ is whole to all that tastes:

Thousands are, as one, receivers, One, as thousands of believers,
   Eats of him who cannot waste.

Bad and good the feast are sharing, Of what divers dooms preparing,
   Endless death, or endless life.

Life to these, to those damnation, See how like participation
   Is with unlike issues rife.

When the sacrament is broken, Doubt not, but believe ‘tis spoken,
That each sever’d outward token doth the very whole contain.

Nought the precious gift divides, Breaking but the sign betides
   Jesus still the same abides, Still unbroken does remain.

Lo! the angel’s food is given, To the pilgrim who has striven;
See the children’s bread from heaven, which on dogs may not be spent.

Truth the ancient types fulfilling, Isaac bound, a victim willing,
   Paschal lamb, its lifeblood spilling, Manna to the fathers sent.

Very bread, good shepherd, tend us, Jesu, of your love befriend us,
   You refresh us, you defend us, Your eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see.

You who all things can and know, Who on earth such food bestow,
   Grant us with your saints, though lowest, Where the heav’nly feast you show,
Fellow heirs and guests to be. Amen. Alleluia.

Gospel Acclamation

Gospel John 6:51–58

Jesus said to the crowds: 51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 52 The people then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

Catena Nova

It is the sacrament of yourselves that is placed on the Lord’s altar, and it is the sacrament of yourselves that you receive. You reply ‘Amen’ to what you are, and thereby agree that such you are. You hear the words ‘The body of Christ’ and you reply ‘Amen’. Be, then, a member of Christ’s body, so that your ‘Amen’ may accord with the truth. (St. Augustine of Hippo)

When we speak of the reality of Christ's nature being in us, we would be speaking foolishly and impiously - had we not learned it from Him. For He Himself says: 'My Flesh is truly Food, and My Blood is truly Drink. He that eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood will remain in Me and I in him.' As to the reality of His Flesh and Blood, there is no room left for doubt, because now, both by the declaration of the Lord Himself and by our own faith, it is truly the Flesh and it is truly Blood. And These Elements bring it about, when taken and consumed, that we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Is this not true? Let those who deny that Jesus Christ is true God be free to find these things untrue. But He Himself is in us through the flesh and we are in Him, while that which we are with Him is in God. (St. Hilary of Poitiers)

In this Sacrament, O Christ, I find both Your humanity and Your divinity; from Your humanity I rise to Your divinity, and from it I go back to Your humanity. I see Your ineffable divinity which contains all the treasures of wisdom, of knowledge, of incorruptible riches. See the inexhaustible fountain of delights which alone can satisfy our intelligence. I see Your most precious soul, O Jesus, with all the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit, a holy and unspotted oblation; I see Your sacred Body, the price of our redemption; I see Your Blood, which purifies and vivifies us; in brief, I find treasures which are so precious and so great that I cannot comprehend them. (St. Angela of Foligno)

In the Blessed Sacrament God loves us so tenderly, He empties Himself completely. O, who could believe it? Withholding nothing, He gives his all. He gives his flesh for us to eat He gives his blood for us to drink. He gives his soul, his infinite being To transform us into Himself. Praised be the Blessed Sacrament!” (St. Louis de Montfort)

If you and I love our faulty fellow-human beings, how much more must God love us all? If we as human parents, can forgive our children any neglect, any crime, and work and pray patiently to make them better, how much more does God love us? You may say perhaps: "How do we know He does, if there is a He!" And I can only answer that we know it because He is here present with us today in the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, that He never has left us, and that by daily going to Him for the gift of Himself as daily bread, I am convinced of that love. I have the Faith that feeding at that table has nourished my soul so that there is life in it, and a lively realization that there is such a thing as the love of Christ for us. It took me a long time as a convert to realize the presence of Christ as Man in the Sacrament. He is the same Jesus Who walked on earth, Who slept in the boat as the tempest arose, Who hungered in the desert, Who prayed in the garden, Who conversed with the woman by the well, Who rested at the house of Martha and Mary, Who wandered through the cornfields, picking the ears of corn to eat. Jesus is there as Man. He is there, Flesh and Blood, Soul and Divinity. He is our leader Who is always with us. Do you wonder that Catholics are exultant in this knowledge, that their Leader is with them? "I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Dorothy Day).

O God, over every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day, I say again the words: “This is my body.” And over every death-force which waits in readiness to corrode, to wither, to cut down, I speak again your words which express the supreme mystery of faith: “This is my blood.” On my paten, I hold all who will live this day in vitality, the young, the strong, the healthy, the joy-filled; and in my chalice, I hold all that will be crushed and broken today as that vitality draws its life. I offer you on this all-embracing altar everything that is in our world, everything that is rising and everything that is dying, and ask you to bless it. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

If we find it difficult to find the right approach to the inner understanding of this sacrament, we have to search our own souls. Let us pose to ourselves the mystery of our own life from which we flee in the hustle and bustle of our everyday life and through the narcotics of our pleasures! Let the infinite longing take power in us! Hearken to the indwelling death in us! Let us be horrified over the cruel loneliness of the human being locked up in us! Let us seriously ask if the insensibility to God which we have tried to assess as an accusation against him, or as half-admitted proof against his existence, is not really that with which we have allied ourselves deep down in our hearts, so that we do not have to become men of infinite love, men of eternity who blissfully let God make exorbitant demands on them. If in this or similar ways (there are innumerable more) we undeviatingly resist our own true selves, we will suddenly receive an understanding of this sacrament. For what we hear from him in faith will suddenly sound as the answer to the question which came up in us, which is our selves. Do we suffer from the distance from God? Here is the voice of him who spoke in the utter darkness of death: Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. Here he is with his death! Do we suffer from the pain of being unable to love? Here is the one who in the night when he was betrayed (he was betrayed by us all) loved his disciples up to the end. Would we like to be loyal to the Earth and no longer see the works of this Earth perish? Here is the transfigured world in the transfigured flesh of the resurrected, here is the beginning of the glorious validity of this Earth! Take and eat the pledge of the salvation and glorification of all flesh! Are we tormented by the ambiguity, the fragility and hollowness of our own being, its guilt, its failure, its horrendous wretchedness? Here is the one who has suffered for us, as he was without guilt, through all the abysses of our guilt, since he became a curse for us, who, knowing us to our abysses, accepted us, loved us, healed us! Are we tormented by the fear of meaningless decay and destruction? Here is the one who has anticipated all meaningless decay and destruction, who has redeemed them and who gives us power in pure powerlessness to accept them. Here is everything: the meaning, the pain, and the bliss of our existence. Hidden, however, and open only to faith. But truly and really. O holy banquet, thus will we pray with the church, in which Christ is received, in which his suffering in commemorating celebration is made present, and in which is give the pledge of our approaching glory. (Karl Rahner)

Homily

“I wish I liked Catholics more.” So says Sebastian Flyte to Charles Ryder in Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited. “They seem just like other people,” Ryder responds. “That’s exactly what they’re not,” Sebastian objects. “It’s not just that they’re a clique—as a matter of fact, they’re at least four cliques all blackguarding each other half the time…." (Cf. Paul Baumann, "Catholic Cliques," Commonweal; May 7, 2026). Alas, I too confess how the political and theological enthusiasms of many of my fellow Catholics, including clergy, often induce dislike.

It often shows up among recent converts — the latter-day crop of "more Catholic than thou" types like Waugh himself, G.K. Chesterson, and Graham Greene in the last century. Once such newbie recently wrote of what would surely make me not like him much. Stephen Adubato became a Catholic during his junior year in college. He describes himself as follows:

On top of refusing to receive Communion from lay people or in my hand while standing, I made it a point to bow lower than everyone else during the mention of the Incarnation in the creed and to pound my chest loudly during the Confiteor. When people reached out their hand to hold mine during the Our Father, I shook my head—telling them afterward that it constituted liturgical abuse because it is not in the rubrics for Mass.

I would even recite some of the Mass responses in Latin. This was because I had developed a devotion to the Tridentine Latin Mass, and was determined to include as much from it as I could whenever I was “forced” to attend a Novus Ordo Mass, which wasn’t reverent enough for my liking.

Beyond the Mass itself, I would cross myself ostentatiously whenever I passed by a church—especially when I was walking with non-Catholic friends. And I never left home without wearing a large cross and several saint medals, if not also a Catholic-themed graphic T-shirt. I would also go out of my way to “defend the faith” as much as possible. This usually took the form of starting arguments with people who did or said things that challenged the church’s moral or theological teachings. I frequently told my family members that they were in error for being "cafeteria Catholics" and sincerely hoped my corrections would bring them back to the right path.

And then he ran into a veteran Catholic by the name of Suzanne who offered Stephen some correction of her own. She told him, "'The liturgy is not about you….The liturgy is about communion with Christ through your being part of the body of believers. It’s not about your ‘self-expression’ or personal piety.” (Cf. Stephen G. Adubato, "Performative piety: Why liturgy is not a space for self-expression," America; May 8, 2026).

I think I might like Stephen more now. But I hope he's been listening to the talks Pope Leo has been giving during his weekly audiences on the documents of the Second Vatican Council. He recently turned to the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Much like Suzanne to her neophyte friend, the pope notes how the liturgy

forms an open community, welcoming to all. Indeed, it is inhabited by the Holy Spirit, it introduces us into the life of Christ, it makes us His Body and, in all its dimensions, it represents a sign of the unity of the entire human race in Christ (May 20, 2026) [and the rite] can sometimes be at odds with with our individual tendency towards spontaneity. (June 3, 2 026)

So nothing idiosyncratic, please, whether on the part of the clergy or the laity where personal preferences and even ideologies are imposed on others, obscuring the corporate nature of the liturgical celebration.

Finally, if I may offer Stephen another friendly piece of advice from a source I suspect he does't follow, namely, Christopher Hales' blog Letters from Leo. If he did, he would have found the following advice to new converts which, by the way, is just as relevant to us dyed in the wool types who've paid our dues:

….your growth as a follower of Jesus will not ultimately depend on the quality of your prayer, the uprightness of your behavior, or the discipline of your spiritual life. Those things matter. But the foundation of everything is your willingness to keep returning to the mercy of God, which surpasses all understanding.

The faith you receive…asks something of you in every single moment. It asks you to defend the dignity of all life and to welcome the immigrant, to feed the hungry and to visit the prisoner, to fight for a living wage and to care for creation — and to see the image of God in the people your political party would rather you ignore.

God challenges my politics — and yours. No one is exempt.

Catholic social teaching does not fit neatly into any partisan box, and that is one of its great gifts — it will make you uncomfortable no matter where you sit on the political spectrum, because the Gospel always demands more than any platform can deliver.

The road through this life can be narrow and difficult. But you do not walk it alone. You have a community of the living and the dead, of sinners and saints, walking with you the whole way — Augustine and Aquinas, Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero, your grandmother who prayed for you every night, and the stranger in the pew beside you tonight who is just as scared and just as hopeful as you are. (Cf. Christopher Hale, "A Letter to New Catholics Entering the Church Tonight," Letters from Leo; April 4, 2026).

And so, on this Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, where we sit, sometimes uncomfortably, near those whom we wish we liked more — and probably, they us — what matters is how in "this sacred mystery…the human race, bounded by one world, may be enlightened by one faith and united by one bond of charity" (Preface of the Holy Eucharist II). Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Intercessions (Joe Milner; The Sunday Website)

For the Church: that through our sharing in the Eucharist, we may be transformed more and more into the Body of Christ.

For Christian unity: that Christ’s Body and Blood given for us may heal all the divisions within the Christian community and bind us together into one body in love and service.

For all who cannot receive the Eucharist, particularly those in isolation, in refugee centers, detained or imprisoned for their faith: that God will strengthen them and make God’s presence known to them through others.

For all who are suffering from famine or drought: that God will nurture them, sustain them on their journey, and supply the assistance they need.

For all who have experienced violence: that God will protect them from further harm, right the injustices that have occurred, and give them hope.

For governmental and civic leaders: that God will give them wisdom to address the unrest, insight into righting the injustices, and words that will unite society.

For all who are ill and those care for them: that God will send healing to the sick, strength and wisdom to those who care for them and inspiration to those researching treatments.

The bread you give, O God, is Christ’s flesh for the life of the world; the cup of his blood is your covenant for our salvation. Grant that we who worship Christ in this holy mystery may reverence him in the needy of this world by lives poured out for the sake of that kingdom where he lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen. (ICEL; 1998)

Offertory Chant

Offertory Motet (Jean Berger)

The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of ev’ry living thing, of ev’ry living thing.

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