During the homily of the Holy Mass of Corpus Christi, celebrated this Sunday in Madrid’s Plaza de Cibeles, Leo XIV delivered a message deeply centered on the Eucharist and on Spain’s religious tradition.
The Pope upheld the value of the Corpus Christi processions as an expression of faith in the real presence of Christ and warned against the risk of reducing them to a mere cultural or folkloric display. He also encouraged Catholics to rediscover popular religiosity as a “school of faith” for the present, linked eucharistic adoration with commitment to the poor, and recalled figures such as St. Manuel González and St. John of the Cross as examples of a spirituality centered on the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
Below is the full homily of Leo XIV:
Your Eminences and Most Reverend Excellencies,
dear priests, religious brothers and sisters,
Majesties,
brothers and sisters:
With a heart filled with joy, at the beginning of this Journey to Spain, I preside over this Celebration on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.
We are gathered around the Eucharist, the gift of Christ’s living presence in our midst. He, who wished to offer us His life so that we might enter into communion with the Father and become His children, is here as the living Bread come down from heaven, nourishing us with the very life of God, with a love stronger than death.
This remembrance of the Lord present in the Eucharistic Bread lies at the heart of your faith and of the history of your people. Here in Madrid, but also in so many other places in Spain, Corpus Christi is not just another feast on the liturgical calendar, but a return to the roots of faith to renew love and fidelity to God. The solemn processions of this day have shaped for centuries the piety, art, music, architecture, and life of the Spanish people and, still today, express and manifest the spiritual sentiment of this country also through the beauty and elegance of the floral carpets, the street altars, the care of the monstrances and exposition thrones, the chants, and the vestments. It is not an outward display, a folkloric survival, or a mere aesthetic adornment: here it is about faith in the presence of the Risen Lord, who is alive and continues to pass among us, who becomes bread for our hunger for life and visits the corners of our hearts and our history, even the darkest ones.
Thus, if in the Eucharistic Celebration Christ gives Himself as food, the procession proclaims that He does not remain enclosed in the temple but goes out to meet us. Jesus walks through the streets, crosses the squares, visits our neighborhoods, and dwells in the places of our daily life. He is the God who is near, who walks with His people, the Lord of history, the comfort of the weak, the light for families, the hope of the sick, the peace for those who suffer. The Christ who passes through the streets in the monstrance is the same who identifies with the poor, the downcast, the lonely, and the abandoned. It is no coincidence that here in Spain the Church has for years united the Solemnity of Corpus Christi with Charity Day.
It is not only a matter of bringing out the monstrance, but of allowing ourselves to be drawn out of selfishness, indifference, and a comfortable, private faith, so as to respond to His invitation to conversion, to change our outlook, and to welcome His presence that transforms us and makes us builders of a new world.
Therefore, the historical memory of the Corpus Christi processions is not to be imprisoned in nostalgic recollection; rather, it becomes an invitation for today—for our personal life, our relationships, society, and the building of the future. In this perspective we must understand the invitation to “remember” that we heard in the first reading: “Remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness”; remember how, when you were hungry, He fed you with manna. It is about “remembering” precisely so as not to forget who the Lord is, so as not to fall into the temptation of trusting in other idols and feeding on bread that does not satisfy.
Hence, here is a task for Spain today and tomorrow: that the religiosity which has animated this country for centuries may not be a museum of the past to be visited, but a school of faith from which to draw even today. A school that teaches us to kneel before God and before our neighbor, because no one can kneel before the Lord and despise a brother or sister; a school that teaches us the gratitude of love that becomes gift, so that it may circulate among us and break the chains of all selfishness; a school from which we learn that God is real presence and that we too are called to be present in the situations and challenges of society, not to flee, but to commit ourselves personally to the building of the common good.
Brothers and sisters, I wish to recall here St. Manuel González, the bishop of the abandoned tabernacles. His life reminds us that the Eucharist cannot be honored only in great celebrations or occasionally, but also in the silent fidelity of one who accompanies the Lord with humble and discreet friendship nourished day by day. I would also like to recall the poetic verses of St. John of the Cross: “How well I know the fountain that flows and runs, though it is night” (Song of the Soul that Rejoices in Knowing God by Faith). In the convent prison of Toledo, where he was imprisoned under the harshest conditions, precisely around Corpus Christi of 1578, he recognizes from the night of that prison the hidden presence of the Lord, from which springs a light that knows no setting and flows a life that is never exhausted. Jesus in the Eucharist is “that eternal fountain that is hidden,” a fountain that runs and quenches thirst, yet without dazzling, without imposing itself with outward power, without presenting itself in a spectacular way (cf. ibid.).
Let us return to Him with sincere love. Let us open ourselves to the encounter with Him; let Him water the dryness of our hearts, so that afterwards we may go out onto the paths of life and history and bring among the people this stream of fresh water, a stream of love, peace, justice, and joy. Let us drink again from this eucharistic fountain, which does not enclose us in private devotion but sends us to water our brothers and sisters, families, the poor, those who suffer, those who have lost hope. Eucharistic grace transforms us, but also makes us protagonists of the transformation of history and a sign of hope for those we meet.
May the Lord Jesus present in the Eucharist make you broken bread, given and offered, so that a full life may spring forth for you, for your families, and for your country.