JESUS gave us the greatest sacrament in a humble gesture of giving and of sharing, Pope Francis told pilgrims in St Peter’s Square on the feast of Corpus Christi yesterday.
“The words and gestures of the Lord touch our hearts – He takes the bread in his hands, pronounces the blessing, breaks it and offers it to the disciples, saying, Take; this is my body”, Pope Francis said.
He said Jesus broke “himself at the Passover supper with the disciples”, and showed us the aim of life lies in self-giving – “the greatest thing is to serve”.
Pope Francis reflected on how the greatness of God was found in a piece of bread, “in a fragility that overflows with love and sharing”.
He highlighted the meaning of the word ‘fragility’, explaining that at the last supper “Jesus becomes fragile like the bread that is broken and crumbled”.
“But his strength lies precisely therein,” he said.
“In the Eucharist fragility is strength; the strength of the love that becomes small so as to be welcomed and not feared; the strength of the love that is broken and shared so as to nourish and give life; the strength of the love that is split apart so as to join us in unity,” he said.
Pope Francis said it was also “the strength to love those who make mistakes”.
“It is on the night he is betrayed that Jesus gives us the Bread of Life,” he said.
“He gives us the greatest gift while in his heart he feels the deepest abyss; the disciple who eats with Him, who dips the morsel in the same plate, is betraying Him.”
“When we receive the Eucharist,” Pope Francis said, “Jesus does the same with us: he knows us; he knows that we are sinners and we make many mistakes, but he does not give up joining his life to ours.”
The Eucharist is not a reward of saints, but the Bread of sinners, Pope Francis said.
Each time we receive the Bread of Life, the Lord comes to give new meaning to our fragilities, he said.
Urging the faithful never to refrain from sharing their fragilities with Lord, he reminded them that His mercy is not afraid of our miseries.
“And above all he heals us with love from those fragilities that we cannot heal on our own: that of feeling resentment toward those who have hurt us; that of distancing ourselves from others and closing off within ourselves; that of feeling sorry for ourselves and lamenting without finding peace,” he said.
The Eucharist “heals because it joins with Jesus: it makes us assimilate his way of living, his ability to be broken up and given to brothers and sisters, to respond to evil with good”, he said.
Pope Francis said the Lord “gives us the courage to go outside of ourselves and bend down with love toward the fragility of others”.
As God does with us, this is the logic of the Eucharist – we receive Jesus who loves us and heals our fragilities in order to love others and help them in their fragilities, he said.
