The Holy Spirit calls us to renewal

With great love, joy, and devotion, we gathered as a Diocesan Family to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi this past June. Together we gave honor and praise to the “SOUL” of the Church. Thank you for your contributions and participation. 

Each one of us approaches and receives the Eucharist as an individual, but the Eucharist is given to “us.”  It is the Eucharist that makes us the Body of Christ, the Church.
 
We do not know who we are when we ignore, take for granted, or disrespect the Eucharist as the living soul of our Christian existence. Without the understanding of what we receive or better who we receive, life loses its meaning. Work becomes a task, illness is seen as a curse, life loses dignity –even life in the womb– and death becomes something to fear. Divisions and differences easily take root among us. 

As we receive the Eucharist, I invite us to become aware that all the differences we can point out should not and cannot exist if we are the Body of Christ, united in him. I pray that as the Diocese of Corpus Christi we will experience evermore the living presence of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and be certain that when each of us receives the Eucharist, we are bound together in a spiritual bond. “Who can separate us from the love of Christ,” (Romans 8:35), only ourselves. 

I believe the Holy Spirit is calling us to renewal as the Body of Christ, not only in our diocese but throughout the Church.  The world is divided.  We cannot be divided.  We are the soul of humanity. Jesus gave us his Body and Blood so that our life together, as a Catholic community, as disciples of Jesus Christ, would be a witness to those who have lost their way. 

We thank God for the Eucharist, the Sacrament of life, love, and unity. Let us take courage. Let us let the Eucharist be the core of our being, define who we are, and be people who can point to God simply by how we live our lives.
 
In 2022 the diocese will celebrate its 110th Anniversary. It is with joy that I invite you to the Eucharistic Congress that will take place on June 24 and June 25, 2022. Let us come together then as family and witness to the world that the Eucharist is our soul, our nourishment and our way forward.