Monsignor Enrique Díaz Díaz shares with Exaudi readers his reflection on the  Gospel of this Thursday, June 4, 2026,  Feast of Corpus Christi,  entitled:  “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink .”

***

The Body and Blood of Christ.

Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16:  “I gave you food that neither you nor your ancestors had ever known.”

Psalm 147:  “Blessed be the Lord”

1 Corinthians 10:16-17:  “Because there is one loaf, we who eat of it are one body.”

John 6:51-58:  “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink”

Pope Leo X emphasizes that the Eucharist is the center of Christian life and “God’s answer to the deepest hunger of the human heart.” He insists on the clear connection between the Eucharist and life; between sharing the Living Bread and the demand for commitment to our brothers and sisters. The Eucharist will have profound meaning if its celebration leads us to a serious commitment to transforming situations of injustice into opportunities for creating new structures of solidarity and fraternity. We hear the passage where Christ defines himself as the bread of life, the living bread. He makes this declaration after multiplying the loaves to feed a hungry multitude and contrasts the “New Bread” with the manna that the ancestors ate in the desert. Jesus’s way of acting is impressive; with just a few words and a few signs, he teaches us a new vision of family, responsibility, and sharing. He demands that the disciples find solutions to feed the hungry multitude and does not accept the excuse that they only have five loaves and two fish. On the contrary, he urges them to share what little they have. Later, he will define himself as the Bread of Life. One of the aspects that Pope Leo XIII has emphasized most is this example that Jesus offers us: understanding the Eucharist as the Bread of Life, which leads us to envision a fraternal table for reconciliation and peace. We cannot understand that we all eat from the same bread only to then destroy one another. We cannot understand that we partake of the Bread of Life and then be indifferent to the hunger of our brothers and sisters. The Eucharist is the Bread of Life that leads us to the building of peace. All the signs that accompany the multiplication of the loaves highlight a fraternal table, where everyone has the same dignity, where everyone has the right to food, and where everyone has the obligation to care for the food, to provide what is necessary for everyone, and where everyone is taken into account. Sharing the same Bread is a commitment. Sitting at the same table builds fraternity. May we approach this day, Corpus Christi Thursday, with these sentiments and intentions, to partake of the Bread of Life.