CORPUS CHRISTI 2025
June 22, 2025  St Ignatius 12:00
Robert Chiesa SJ:

I was only 2 months old when I was baptized, so I have no memory of that. But I remember my first communion. It was 81 years ago and we were all dressed up like you are today.

So, what happens when we receive communion? Jesus gives himself to us. “Take and eat,” he says. “This is my body.” This is me, he says, and he ought to know. So we believe him. We don’t really understand, but we take and eat and we thank Jesus.

When some friends of yours move away from the neighborhood or from the mansion you’re living in, they might leave you a little gift, or maybe a photo. When you see that gift or that photo, you remember your friends and the good times you had together. Or maybe when you visit your grandmother, she gives you a big bag of cookies. After you leave Grandma and go home, you remember her each time you eat one of the cookies.

Before Jesus left his friends, he gave them bread and wine, food and drink, and he told them to remember him when they eat the bread and drink the wine. But it’s not like the cookies. When you have eaten all the cookies, there are no more. But the bread that Jesus gives us is there again every time we come to Mass and receive him.

The little piece of bread that Jesus gives us actually contains Jesus himself. “This is my body.”

Isn’t that a marvelous way of staying with us? He enters into our bodies to make us one with himself. That little round thing we receive might not look or taste like bread, but that’s what it is. And, even more, it’s the body of Jesus entering into you and becoming one with you. It’s the body of Jesus. That’s what he said it is—and “he oughta know.”

So, in those precious moments when you have Jesus inside you, be sure to tell him your joys and sorrows, what makes you happy and what makes you sad.

Before we receive Jesus we say “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into me, but just say the word and I’ll be healed.” We know from the gospels that Jesus likes to be with children. He welcomes children, and he loves us and wants to be with us, even when we are sinners. So we can feel free to approach him. We tell him we are not worthy, but he welcomes us as we are, and he will make us better.

And when you come to Mass and receive Jesus, you can see that you are not alone. Everyone around you is here because Jesus welcomes them and wants to be with them. We are all children of God our Father. And we are all friends of Jesus, and Jesus wants us to be friends with one another. No, you are not alone. Jesus is inside you. He is welcoming you along with all his other friends here. And he asks us to live, and play, and study, and work together and to help one another when someone needs something.

We thank your parents for bringing you here today, and we thank the Fathers and Sisters and Sunday School teachers for preparing you for this joyful day.