• Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
The Texas Catholic
The Texas Catholic

Dallas, Texas

Today is Thursday, March 30, 2023
  • Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
  • Follow
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linkedin
    • Instagram
Home
Pope Francis

Pope: Seek Christ in ‘abandoned tabernacles’ of the poor, the lonely

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Pope Francis burns incense as he celebrates Mass marking the feast of Corpus Christi in Ostia, a suburb of Rome, June 3. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

By Junno Arocho Esteves
Catholic News Service

ROME — As he did with his disciples at Passover, Jesus asks all Christians to prepare a place for him, not in “exclusive, selective places” but rather in uncomfortable places that are “untouched by love, untouched by hope,” Pope Francis said.

“How many persons lack dignified housing or food to eat! All of us know people who are lonely, troubled and in need: they are abandoned tabernacles. We, who receive from Jesus our own room and board, are here to prepare a place and a meal for these, our brothers and sisters in need,” the pope said in his homily during Mass June 3, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Pope Francis celebrated the feast day Mass not in Rome, as had been the tradition since 1979, but in the seaside town of Ostia, about 16 miles west. Ostia was where St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, died in 387 on a journey back to Africa after St. Augustine’s conversion to Christianity.

During his pontificate, Blessed Paul VI celebrated the feast day in different neighborhoods in and around Rome, including in Ostia in 1968.

Pope Francis’ evening Mass outside St. Monica Church was followed by a Corpus Christi procession through the streets of Ostia.

A local priest carried the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament, surrounded by four men carrying tall poles holding a canopy. Thousands of men, women and children lined the streets, taking photos and reverently making the sign of the cross as the Blessed Sacrament passed them.

Due to his difficulty walking long distances, Pope Francis met the procession at the Church of Our Lady of Bonaria instead of participating in it.

Before the benediction, the pope stood before the Blessed Sacrament, head bowed in silent prayer, while the choir sang “Tantum Ergo,” the medieval Eucharistic hymn composed by St. Thomas Aquinas.

In his homily, the pope reflected on the Gospel reading in which Jesus instructs his disciples to find a place to celebrate the Passover.

Although the disciples were supposed to prepare the place, the pope noted, they discover a large room that is “furnished and ready.”

“Jesus prepares for us and asks us to be prepared,” the pope said. “What does he prepare for us? A place and a meal. A place much more worthy than the ‘large furnished room’ of the Gospel.”

That place here on earth, the pope said, is the church “where there is, and must be, room for everyone.”

The Eucharist, he added, “is the beating heart of the church” and strengthens all men and women who partake in it.

When receiving Jesus’ body and blood, Christians are not only given their “reservation” to the heavenly banquet, but also nourished with the “bread of heaven,” which is “the only matter on earth that tastes of eternity,” he said.

All men and women, he continued, have a hunger to be loved and are never fully satisfied, even when receiving “the most pleasing compliments, the finest gifts and the most advanced technologies.”

Instead, by receiving Communion and worshipping Christ in the tabernacle, Christians “encounter Jesus” and feel his love.

“Dear brothers and sisters, let us choose this food of life! Let us make Mass our priority!” he exclaimed. “Let us rediscover Eucharistic adoration in our communities! Let us implore the grace to hunger for God, with an insatiable desire to receive what he has prepared for us.”

Pope Francis said that by giving themselves in service to others, Christians live “eucharistically” and imitate Jesus who “became bread broken for our sake.”

Like the disciples, who were instructed by Jesus to go out to the city to make preparations, Christians also are called to prepare for Jesus’ coming “not by keeping our distance but by entering our cities” and tearing down “the walls of indifference and silent collusion.”

“The Eucharist invites to let ourselves be carried along by the wave of Jesus, to not remain grounded on the beach in the hope that something may come along, but to cast into the deep, free, courageous and united,” the pope said.

Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest
Next article Vereecke: Members of Class of 2018 shine as models of faith, success
Previous article Ordination of first U.S.-born Hmong-American priest a milestone

Related Posts

Pope hospitalized for respiratory infection, Vatican says Pope Francis
Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Pope hospitalized for respiratory infection, Vatican says

Confession is 'encounter of love' that fights evil, pope tells priests Pope Francis
Friday, March 24, 2023

Confession is 'encounter of love' that fights evil, pope tells priests

Pope asks Catholics to renew consecration of world to Mary every March 25 Pope Francis
Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Pope asks Catholics to renew consecration of world to Mary every March 25

Texas Catholic Classics

A look at the five Dallas law enforcement officers who gave their lives while protecting citizens during a mass shooting in downtown Dallas in July 2016.

 

How a child with special needs inspired a high school volleyball team, community and a family who heeded God’s call to protect life.

 

After a young runner collapsed at a Dallas marathon, grace and providence unfolded for those involved in the valiant effort to help her.

   

In the summer of 2016, 50 students and 25 chaperones from Dallas Catholic high schools traveled to Nicaragua for a 10-day mission trip.

 

Early on a November morning, Kenndrick Mendieta bounded from the gym at Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep toward the campus’ athletic fields as clouds lifted on a fresh new day.

 

Subscribe

Get the award-winning Texas Catholic delivered to your door. Use the menu below to subscribe now.


Subscription length




 

Photo Gallery

Click here to find your favorite Texas Catholic photographs.

The Texas Catholic Newspaper

Catholic Diocese of Dallas
Michael Gresham, Editor

3725 Blackburn Street
Dallas, Texas 75219
(214) 379-2800

Our Affiliated Sites

Texas Catholic Youth

Revista Católica

Legal and Other

Contact us

Terms of service

Privacy policy

Site map

Site powered by TexasCatholicMedia

© 2013-2019 The Texas Catholic Publishing Company. All rights reserved.