Preparing the Way for the Eucharist: The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, by Gayle Somers

By Gayle Somers, Catholic Exchange, June 20, 2025

Gayle Somers is a member of St. Thomas the Apostle parish in Phoenix and has been writing and leading parish Bible studies since 1996. …

This Sunday, we celebrate Jesus’ gift of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist to His Church and the world.  Yet our Gospel takes us back to the feeding of the five thousand.  Why?

Gospel (Read Lk. 9:11b-17)

On this Solemnity of Corpus Christi, we might expect our Gospel to be an account of the Last Supper, in which Jesus first pronounced the words of His institution of the Eucharist.  However, St. Luke points us in a slightly different direction.  We see Jesus ministering to the large crowds who followed Him, speaking “about the kingdom of God” and healing “those who needed to be cured.”  This action is the very essence of what Jesus came to do when He took on flesh and blood.  He came to tell us that true human life can only be found in God’s kingdom, not the various kingdoms of history or human culture.

He also came to heal us of the great sickness of sin, which so cripples us that even if we perceive God’s kingdom, we are unable to enter it.  “The day was drawing to a close,” St. Luke tells us, foreshadowing the time when Jesus’ earthly ministry would end.  …