St. Pius X Roman Catholic Parish

Corpus Christi 2026

We are in desperate need of a Eucharistic revival in the Church! I think this is a stark reminder to all of us inside the Church that rings through loud and clear on every Corpus Christi Sunday. The revival I think we need is not an external thing, but an interior shift of heart and mind. To get there, we must embrace the confusion and incomplete understanding we have of the mystery we are participating in. We must move past the distractions, routines, and spiritual numbness we all occasionally fall victim to. It will be for us a rediscovery of Who it is that we are receiving, a deepening of our faith, a change of our hearts, and living lives that reflect the mystery we celebrate.

The very first altar that the true Body and Blood of Christ rested upon was the manger in the cave outside of Bethlehem. How far away- not just in the past, but in our reception today of the Bread of Life- have we wandered away. And yet the Lord still gives Himself to us with the same humility, the same nearness, and the same total self-gift. He who was laid in a feeding trough now places Himself into our hands and upon our tongues, asking not only to be received, but to be adored, believed, and loved. If we would know renewal in the Church, it must begin here: in returning with wonder and reverence to the mystery of Christ truly present in the Eucharist.

Saint Augustine gave a homily one time, and he looked at the bread on the altar and told the congregation that they were what was sitting on the altar. In other words, through our Baptism we are a part of the Body and Blood of Christ, as individuals and as the whole Church. At the end of the Offertory, the priest says, “Pray brothers and sisters that my sacrifice and yours…” My sacrifice: The priest, acting in persona Christi (in the person of Christ the Head), offers the ministerial sacrifice to consecrate the bread and wine. And yours: The congregation, acting by virtue of your common priesthood (received at Baptism), offers your own lives, struggles, joys, and work. You bring your tired feet, your working hands, and your eyes that tried to see the good in people into the church. You lay it on the altar next to Christ to merge yourself with Him, sacrificed right next to Him.

This is why Mass is not supposed to be a passive thing. We do not come to Mass only to receive- we come to be taken up into Christ’s own offering to the Father. On the altar, the Lord gathers what is broken, ordinary, weary, and unfinished in us, and unites it to His perfect sacrifice. He receives the gift of our lives not to leave them as they are, but to consecrate them, transform them, and return them to the world as something holy.

This is what Saint Paul means when he says, “In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His Body, the Church” (Col. 1:24). It is not that Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary was somehow not enough; nothing could be added to the infinite worth of His offering. What is “lacking” is not redemption, but our participation in it. The Lord, in His mercy, allows us to unite our sufferings, labors, prayers, and sacrifices to His own, so that what He accomplished once for all on the Cross might be seen in us and bear fruit in the life of the Church. That is why we place our lives on the altar: not because Christ needs something from us, but so that in Him our lives may become an acceptable sacrifice to the Father.

So having said all this, the Eucharistic revival we need is not a matter of strategy or programs, but of conversion. It is a return to the altar with faith, to Holy Communion with reverence, to adoration with wonder, and to daily life with the desire to become what we receive. The Church will be renewed when Catholics once again know, love, and live from the mystery of Jesus Christ truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist. If the renewal is going to start anywhere, it must start in our own hearts.

If we want to renew our faith in the Real Presence, then we must begin with the habits that teach the heart how to believe. We come to Mass on time, not rushing in carelessly, but preparing ourselves to meet the Lord. We don’t leave early, no matter how full the parking lot is or what else apparently can’t wait. We spend time before the tabernacle in silence, letting ourselves be taught by His presence. We recover gestures of reverence, such as genuflecting with intention, fasting before Communion, going regularly to Confession, and examining our consciences honestly- because the body, too, must learn to worship. These are not empty customs. They are small acts of love that train us to recognize that the One before us is not a symbol, but Jesus Christ Himself, truly present.

But perhaps the best way is to follow the direction of the priest after the final blessing: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” A prayer attributed to St Teresa of Avila will help us.

“Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks with compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”