Let Jesus Christ feed the hungers of your life, Pope Francis says on Corpus Christi

The Feast of Corpus Christi is a time for Christians to remember that God will meet their basic needs to eat and to be filled with the joy and amazement of receiving loving nourishment from Jesus Christ, Pope Francis said Sunday.

At the same time, the pope emphasized, the Eucharist must also move Christians to action.

“We can evaluate our Eucharistic Adoration when we take care of our neighbor like Jesus does,” the pope said Sunday before the recitation of the Angelus at St. Peter’s Square in Rome.

“There is hunger for food around us, but also for companionship; there is hunger for consolation, friendship, good humor; there is hunger for attention, there is hunger to be evangelized. We find this in the Eucharistic Bread — the attention of Christ to our needs and the invitation to do the same toward those who are beside us. We need to eat and feed others.”

The pope’s remarks reflected on Sunday’s Gospel reading, the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes from the Gospel of Luke.

The pope linked the reading to the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. The Eucharist was like “the destination of a journey along which Jesus had prefigured through several signs, above all the multiplication of the loaves narrated in the Gospel of today’s liturgy."

The pontiff reflected on the manner of the miracle when Jesus fed so many who lacked food.

“The miracle of the loaves and fishes does not happen in a spectacular way, but almost secretly, like the wedding at Cana — the bread increases as it passes from hand to hand. And as the crowd eats, they realize that Jesus is taking care of everything,” said Pope Francis.

“This is the Lord present in the Eucharist. He calls us to be citizens of Heaven, but at the same time he takes into account the journey we have to face here on earth,” he said. “If I have hardly any bread in my sack, he knows and takes care of it himself.”