Dear friends in Christ

This weekend we celebrate the Feast that is THE Mystery of Faith—Corpus Christi. Writing about this Feast, Saint Thomas Aquinas said: It was to impress the vastness of this love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful that our Lord instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper. He left It as a perpetual memorial of His passion. It was the fulfilment of ancient figures and the greatest of all His miracles. Whilst the Blessed Eucharist IS the greatest of all the signs and miracles Jesus performed, perhaps an even greater miracle is that It has been continued every day throughout the world since that moment. Indeed, in the life of the Church there have been numerous occasions when God has wanted to manifest in a more dramatic way the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Eucharistic Miracles have often occurred as a result of a lack of faith on behalf of the priest or people; a consequence of a sacrilege committed, or simply because God wanted to show us the great treasure we possess of Himself in the Mass.

I have spoken recently about the impact of the life of Blessed Carlo Acutis, the teenager who died in 2006 from leukemia at the age of fifteen; his mother visited London last week to speak about her extra-ordinary son. One of the facets of his holy life was a devotion to the Eucharistic Miracles of the world. He created a website that catalogues these phenomena. You might like to visit it here: http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/en/liste/list.html

The greatest miracle of the Eucharist is that all these centuries later, we are able to celebrate, receive and venerate, the same Lord who gave Himself for us at the Last Supper, on Calvary and Who lives now in Heaven. This Sunday afternoon we have the Eucharistic Procession—a short public display of Catholic Faith in which I hope all of you will try to participate. If we believe passionately in this Mystery of Faith, then we can never tire of telling others about It and drawing others to share the same Faith in Jesus, which we live and worship in the Mystery of the Blessed Eucharist.

God bless you.

Msgr Kevin Hale