Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

Vatican News
30 May

Faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Trinity), is not a distant and unattainable experience. Instead, it is as near since it is perennially “broken” for us: This is my Body… This is my blood.”

In 1207, a Belgian Augustinian nun, Giuliana di Cornillon, who had just turned fifteen, had a vision of a full moon with a dark spot sullying it. Contemporary experts interpreted it thus: the full moon symbolized the Church, the dark spot was the absence of a specific feast in honour of the Body of the Eucharistic Jesus. The following year, the same religious had an even clearer vision, but had to fight hard to get the feast instituted. She succeeded only at the diocesan level, when Robert de Thourette became bishop of Liège in 1247. In 1261, the former archdeacon of Liège, Jacques Panteléon, became Pope Urban IV. In 1264, impressed by a Eucharistic miracle that had taken place in Bolsena, near Orvieto in Italy where he was residing, he promulgated the bull Transiturus through which he instituted a new solemnity to be celebrated the Thursday after the Octave of Pentecost in honour of the Blessed Sacrament. Thomas Aquinas was given the task of composing the liturgical office. The last strophe of the hymns very famous hymn he wrote, Sacris Solemniis, which begins with the words Panis angelicus (Bread of angels), has often been set to different musical scores, apart from the rest of the hymn. Since Pope Urban IV died two months after having instituted the feast, the bull was never implemented, but Pope Clement V, the first Avignon Pope (1312), confirmed it later.

The now traditional procession of Corpus Christi was introduced by Pope John XXII in 1316. During his pastoral visit to Orvieto, Saint John Paul II said: “Even though the construction of this cathedral was not directly connected with the Solemnity of ‘Corpus Christi’, instituted by Pope Urban IV with the bull Transiturus, in 1264, nor with the miracle that took place in Bolsena the previous year, there is no doubt that the Eucharistic miracle is powerfully evidenced here due to the corporal of Bolsena for which the chapel was specifically built and which it now jealously guards. Since then, the city of Orvieto became known throughout the world due to that miraculous sign that reminds all of us of the merciful love of God who becomes the food and drink of salvation for humanity on its early pilgrimage. Because of the cult rendered to such a great mystery, your city preserves and nourishes the inextinguishable flame” (17 June 1990).

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” (Jn. 6:51-58)

There’s bread and there is bread

The people did not forget and could not forget the Exodus experience and what God had done for them. The First Reading from the Book of Deuteronomy focuses on this. It can be said that life is guided by memory. “Remember how for forty years now the Lord, your God, directed all your journeying…” (Dt. 8:2). Along that journey, the people received “manna” in which they received the strength to endure the difficult journey through the “vast and terrible wilderness with its saraph serpents and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground; who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock and fed you in the desert with manna, a food unknown to your fathers” (Dt. 8:15).

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God’s power is made perfect in weakness

Pope Francis at General Audience (28 February 2024)

During his weekly General Audience, Pope Francis continues his catechesis series on virtues and vices, this week focusing on the sins of envy and vainglory, suggesting there are remedies to each, both of which involve making ourselves less at the center, embracing weakness, and letting God operate in our lives.

By Deborah Castellano Lubov
28 February 2024

Envy and vainglory are dangerous vices, but there are remedies to combat each.

Pope Francis suggested this during his weekly General Audience on Wednesday morning in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, as he continued his catechesis series on virtues and vices, this week examining envy and vainglory. 

Given the Pope’s recent flu-like symptoms, the Holy Father opted for an official of the Vatican Secretariat of State, Msgr. Filippo Ciampanelli, to read his remarks on his behalf, as he has done for the Holy Father on other occasions.

Speaking first about envy, the Pope recalled the sin, even as early as in the story of Cain and Abel, proved to be a destructive force fuelled by resentment towards others, that often leads to deadly hatred. 

“Envy,” he observed, “is an evil that has not only been investigated in the Christian sphere: it has attracted the attention of philosophers and wise men of every culture.”

God’s ‘math’ is different

At envy’s basis, the Holy Father suggested, is a relationship of hate and love. “One desires the evil for the other, but secretly desires to be like him.

“His good fortune,” he continued, “seems to us an injustice: surely, we think to ourselves,  we would deserve his successes or good fortune much more!

At the root of this vice, he noted, is “a false idea of God,” where “we do not accept that God has His own ‘math,’ different from ours.”

Remedies to envy and vainglory

The remedy to envy, the Pope suggested, lies in Saint Paul’s exhortation: “Love one another with brotherly affection, compete in esteeming one another.”

Meanwhile, vainglory, which is excessive or ostentatious pride especially in one’s achievements, he said, is marked by an inflated self-esteem and “a craving for constant praise,” “frequently prone to using other people for one’s own ends.”

This sin, the Holy Father pointed out, goes hand in hand with “the demon” of envy, saying both vices are characteristic of a person “who aspires to be the centre of the world.”

God’s power made perfect in weakness

The vainglorious person, the Pope indicated, is completely self-absorbed.

To combat this vice, the Pope suggested following Saint Paul’s example of boasting of his weakness rather than achievements, which “offers an effective way for overcoming vainglory.”

Pope Francis urged the faithful to imitate Saint Paul in knowing that God’s grace is sufficient, since His power is made perfect in weakness.

As we accept and even embrace our weaknesses, the Holy Father suggested, the power of Christ will set us free for a more generous love of others.

Pope Francis names new Caceres archbishop

Archbishop-elect Rex Andrew Alarcon of Caceres. NIKKO BALBEDINA/CBCP NEWS

By Roy Lagarde
February 22, 2024
Manila, Philippines

Pope Francis on Thursday appointed Bishop Rex Andrew Alarcon as the new archbishop of Caceres, his home archdiocese.

Alarcon, currently serving as the bishop of Daet, will succeed Archbishop Rolando Tria Tirona, who retired at the age of 77.

Tirona has led the archdiocese since November 2012.

As archbishop of Caceres, Alarcon will oversee the pastoral care of Catholics in Naga City, considered the economic, cultural, educational, and religious center of the Bicol region.

The archbishop-elect was born in Daet, the provincial capital of Camarines Norte, on August 6, 1970.

After completing his high school education and philosophy courses at the Holy Rosary Minor Seminary in Naga, he studied theology at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Central Seminary in Manila.

Alarcon was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Caceres on November 9, 1996.

The 53-year-old also holds a licentiate in Church history, which he obtained from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 2001.

Before becoming a bishop, he led the Bicol Association of Catholic Schools and served as the president of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP).

On Jan. 2, 2019, the pope appointed him as the bishop of Daet. He was ordained to the episcopate on March 19 of the same year and formally assumed his new role the following day.

As metropolitan archbishop, he also meets with the suffragan bishops to discuss matters of importance to the region. The suffragan dioceses of the Caceres archdiocese include Daet, Legazpi, Libmanan, Masbate, Sorsogon and Virac.

Within the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Alarcon currently serves as the chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Youth.

Walk for Life 2024

Together, We Walk for Life!

It was a show of our Conviction to defend life from conception to natural death.

A reigniting of our Commitment – if you can wake up before the sunrise, walk down a highway to a program in a field – that’s commitment to a reignited cause!

And a strengthening of Community. Regardless of Arch/Diocese, Organization or affiliation, we all came together to be a Community of disciples towards a goal.

Thank you to all who made this possible. We are so blessed and thankful. Never imagined this, but like I said, we go where the Lord takes us, and we do what He wants us to do!

Xavier Padilla

President

Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas

Share your love: Homily of Manila Archbishop Jose F. Cardinal Advincula at 2024 Walk for Life

(Photo by Kyler Bernardo/RCAM-AOC | Photogallery)

Jose F. Cardinal Advincula
University of Santo Tomas, Manila
February 17, 2024

Rev. Fr. Filemon dela Cruz, Prior Provincial of the Dominican Province of the Philippines; Rev. Fr. Richard Ang, O.P., university rector; my dear Dominican fathers and brothers; administrators, faculty, personnel, and students of the university; dearly beloved in Christ,

Together, we walk for life.

This is the theme we have chosen for our Walk for Life 2024. We want to highlight the fact that in life, we cannot walk alone. As we uphold, promote, and defend the sacredness of life and the dignity of every person, we cannot be alone. We need one another. We need to journey together. An African proverb tells us, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Indeed, our defense and promotion of a culture of life in our society today is not a short-term engagement or a temporary battle. From experience, we know that as long as there are subtle and not so subtle attacks against the family and human life, we will be there to register our firm objection and make sure that our united stand is heard.

Today, I would like to honor and appreciate all of you who have been at the forefront of our mission to proclaim the Gospel of Life, a message lovingly received day after day by the Church and preached with dauntless fidelity as good news to the people of every age and culture. For some of you, this has been your life-long task and advocacy. Thanks to all of you, missionaries for the Gospel of Life, we can fulfill our prophetic role in a rapidly changing world that is oftentimes more welcoming to a civilization of death and so hostile to a civilization of life and love. I encourage you to continue to be passionate in your ministry. Do not be disheartened if sometimes you feel that what you have been doing is not even noticed or ends up in an apparent failure. Take courage. You are not alone. As the prophet Isaiah said in the first reading, “The Lord will guide you alwaysand give you plenty even on the parched land.He will renew your strength,and you shall be like a watered garden,like a spring whose water never fails.”

The theme “Together, we walk for life,” is also a challenge for us to explore new pathways to respond better to the dominant values of our contemporary times. Kailangan na rin nating harapin ang katotohanan na napakaraming isyu sa pamilya at lipunan ngayon ang hindi na maaaring sagutin ng “Huwag ka nang magtanong. Sumunod ka na lang.” We need to engage in more listening and dialogue. This is part of walking for life. Yes, we are clear about our teachings on the different issues connected with life and family. But we also need to rethink our approaches, methodologies, and strategies. How do we deal with the dilemmas and complexities of modern families, the irregular situations in the home, the diversity in understanding identity and personhood, the wounds caused and inflicted because of polarization even in the home? Pope Francis has pointed us to the style of synodality so we can listen and discern together. It is important that all of us here in this walk must help each other to become a synodal Church in mission.

Jesus, in our Gospel today from St. Luke, gave us the best example of how to walk for life together. He dined and dialogued with the known sinners of His time. He called Levi, a tax collector, to follow Him. He attended the banquet which Levi prepared in his house. He had no problem being on the same table with a large crowd of tax collectors! He told the scribes and pharisees who were complaining about his impertinent behavior, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.

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Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for Lent 2024

Through the Desert God Leads us to Freedom

Dear brothers and sisters!

When our God reveals himself, his message is always one of freedom: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex 20:2). These are the first words of the Decalogue given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Those who heard them were quite familiar with the exodus of which God spoke: the experience of their bondage still weighed heavily upon them. In the desert, they received the “Ten Words” as a thoroughfare to freedom. We call them “commandments”, in order to emphasize the strength of the love by which God shapes his people. The call to freedom is a demanding one. It is not answered straightaway; it has to mature as part of a journey. Just as Israel in the desert still clung to Egypt – often longing for the past and grumbling against the Lord and Moses – today too, God’s people can cling to an oppressive bondage that it is called to leave behind. We realize how true this is at those moments when we feel hopeless, wandering through life like a desert and lacking a promised land as our destination. Lent is the season of grace in which the desert can become once more – in the words of the prophet Hosea – the place of our first love (cf. Hos 2:16-17). God shapes his people, he enables us to leave our slavery behind and experience a Passover from death to life. Like a bridegroom, the Lord draws us once more to himself, whispering words of love to our hearts.

The exodus from slavery to freedom is no abstract journey. If our celebration of Lent is to be concrete, the first step is to desire to open our eyes to reality. When the Lord calls out to Moses from the burning bush, he immediately shows that he is a God who sees and, above all, hears: “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex 3:7-8). Today too, the cry of so many of our oppressed brothers and sisters rises to heaven. Let us ask ourselves: Do we hear that cry? Does it trouble us? Does it move us? All too many things keep us apart from each other, denying the fraternity that, from the beginning, binds us to one another.

During my visit to Lampedusa, as a way of countering the globalization of indifference, I asked two questions, which have become more and more pressing: “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9) and “Where is your brother?” (Gen 4:9). Our Lenten journey will be concrete if, by listening once more to those two questions, we realize that even today we remain under the rule of Pharaoh. A rule that makes us weary and indifferent. A model of growth that divides and robs us of a future. Earth, air and water are polluted, but so are our souls. True, Baptism has begun our process of liberation, yet there remains in us an inexplicable longing for slavery. A kind of attraction to the security of familiar things, to the detriment of our freedom.

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23rd Biennial National Convention Resolutions

SANGGUNIANG LAIKO NG PILIPINAS 
23rd Biennial National Convention 
October 27-29, 2023 

RESOLUTIONS 

We, the 299 participants representing the 28 Lay Organizations and Movements (LOMAS) and the 37 Arch/Diocesan Councils of the Laity are gathered during the 23rd National Biennial Convention of the Sangguniang Laiko ng Pilipinas held on October 27 to 29, 2023 in Tacloban City in the Diocese of Palo with the theme: ‘United in Mission as a Synodal Church’ which is held in time of the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican. 

It is the first time the participants from all over the Philippines are gathered face to face after the pandemic caused by Covid-19 virus. 

  1. INTEGRAL FORMATION 

As lay members of the Church, we are aware of the urgency to provide an integral, integrated formation for different age levels, cultures, languages, social classes, gender, etc. We are called to provide structures and spaces for this endeavor emphasizing the spiritual, doctrinal, and social dimensions, we resolve to: 

  • Deepen our relationship with God through prayer, contemplation, and silence that disposes a discerning and listening heart in all our activities and gatherings. 
  • Provide a common integral formation program on the role of the laity in the Church through the Apostolic Exhortation, Christi Fideles Laici that is made available for all Lay Organizations and Movements (LOMAS) and Arch/Diocesan Councils of the Laity. 
  1. CO-RESPONSIBILITY 

We recognize that we all called to serve through the gifts we receive from the Holy Spirit. Each one has equal opportunity to serve for the mission. As lay, we need to find ways on how we can complement and not to compete with each other. We can only do this if we know who we are and where we are coming from, we resolve to: 

  • Foster an environment of open dialogue and collaboration between lay and clergy for the fulfillment of the mission of the Church through listening, respecting each other and walking together. 
  • Promote affective collegiality among members of the Church to bring about a sense of owning in its activities and life. 
  • Journey together as a synodal Church with its structures of better listening that all voices are heard and valued. 

2.  INCLUSION 

A great challenge of a synodal Church today is a desire to be converted from our own pre-judgements and see things in the eyes of God; to be firm in our faith, to do what we believe and be able to respect others. We are convinced that dialogue is a way of building bridges to break boundaries that divide and foster unity in the midst of differences, we resolve to: 

  • Reach out and welcome everyone in the community; journeying with them in the different teachings and sharing our faith life experience. 
  • Provide opportunities of participation and engage in the mission of the Church, the young people, those who are considered to be in the peripheries, and those with special needs. 
  • Collaborate with people of other faith, Christian groups and denominations, and indigenous people in addressing our common concerns like working for peace, care for our common home, pursuit for good governance, and alleviation of poverty. 

All these, we entrust into the hands of God with Mary as our icon of synodality to accompany us, as we commit ourselves, dedicate our time, and economic resources for the fulfillment of these resolutions in the next two years.