Today is June 22, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
We read at today’s Mass for the feast of Corpus Christi, “Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied. And when the leftover fragments were picked up, they filled twelve wicker baskets” (Lk 9:16).
Corpus Christi always carries me back to my first Mass of thanksgiving at my home parish, St. Charles Borromeo. That joyful memory blends with deep Dominican pride: our medieval friars championed this feast, and St. Thomas Aquinas himself composed the prayers and hymns the Church still sings today.
The Gospel recounts the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Yes, the multiplication is astounding; yes, the Lord’s gestures — taking, blessing, breaking, giving — prefigure every Mass. But the line that stops me in my tracks is this declaration: “They all ate and were satisfied.” The crowd did not merely receive “enough”; they received abundance.
‘Draw my heart into yours’
Only the Eucharist can satisfy the human heart in that way. Cardinal Manning put it beautifully: “He takes our heart into his Heart and places his Heart in ours.” That mystical exchange happens in Holy Communion. As we receive the Lord’s Body and Blood, he draws our restless hearts into his own and leaves us filled with his divine life.
Today, when you approach the altar, dare to pray, “Jesus, draw my heart into yours. Place your Heart in mine, that I may love as you love.” Let this exchange of hearts be your act of thanksgiving, and trust that the One who fed the five thousand will feed you with the fullness your soul longs for.
Let us pray,
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, on God, for ever and ever. Amen.