Eucharist should make us attentive to needs of the poor, Benedict XVI teaches

Vatican City, May 25, 2008 / 09:03 am

Speaking to pilgrims about the feast of Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict XVI said "the Eucharist reveals the true beauty of Christianity"  and is "the school of charity and solidarity that  should make us more attentive to the many people who struggle to procure their daily bread."

"One week ago our gaze was on the mystery of the Trinity; today we are invited to fix our gaze on the holy Host: and thus on God, the same Love. This is the beauty of true Christianity: The Creator and Lord of all things was made a grain of wheat in order to be sown on our earth, in the furrows of our history. He was made bread to be broken, shared, eaten; he was made our food to give us live, his own divine life.”

Pope Benedict also pointed to the fact that Jesus was, “Born in Bethlehem, which in Hebrew means ‘house of bread’.” From these origins, Jesus’ desire to feed his followers became even more explicit in his preaching. He revealed to the people that “the Father had sent him into the world as the ‘living bread descended from heaven,’ as the ‘bread of life’.”

The Holy Father elaborated on this feast of the Eucharist, calling it "a wonderful gift of Christ, who at the Last Supper wanted to leave us with this memorial of Easter, the sacrament of his Body and Blood, a token of his immense love for us."

The Eucharist, he said, is "the school of charity and solidarity. He who eats of the bread of Christ cannot remain indifferent before those, who also in our day, are deprived of their daily bread."

Addressing the problem of rising food costs and poor distribution, he said, "Many parents can hardly procure enough food for themselves and their children. It is a growing problem that the international community is making great efforts to resolve. The Church not only prays ‘give us this day our daily bread,’ but the example of the Lord who in so many ways ‘multiplies five loaves and two fish’ with countless initiatives to promote humanity and sharing, so that no one is lacking in what is necessary to live."

The Holy Father added that Christians are called to be attentive in concrete ways to the many who go without food.

"Dear brothers and sisters, let this feast of Corpus Domini be an occasion to grow in the in this concrete attention to our brothers, especially the poor."

"We obtain this grace from the Virgin Mary, from whom the Son of God took flesh and blood, as we repeat in a celebrated Eucharistic hymn, set to music by the one of the greatest composers, Ave verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine… Mary, who brought forth from her womb Jesus, who was the ‘tabernacle’ of living, imparts to us her own faith in the holy mystery of the Body and Blood of her divine Son, since he is truly the center of our lives."

At the end of his address, the Pope invited all those present to join him in Rosary in St. Peters Square next Saturday evening.