Holy Father Pope Francis while addressing the faithful during the Holy Mass on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, invited the people of the Roman suburb of Ostia to overcome the walls of indifference and silent collusion. His Holiness Pope Francis celebrated the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in the Roman sea-side suburb of Ostia on Sunday, becoming the first Pope since 1981 to lead the Eucharistic procession in a location other than the now-traditional tract from St. John Lateran to St. Mary Major. The Pontiff reflected on how the Lord prepares a place and a meal for his disciples in the Eucharist. He also invited the port city’s residents to loosen “the knots that keep us bound to the moorings of fear and depression.”
As reported by Vatican news, Holy Father Pope Francis remarked that “Jesus wants the walls of indifference and silent collusion to be breached, iron bars of oppression and arrogance torn asunder, and paths cleared for justice, civility and legality. The city’s beachfront speaks to us of how beautiful it is to open our hearts and to set out in new directions in life. Further, His Holiness added, “The Eucharist, is an invitation to be carried along by the wave of Jesus and to cast into the deep.”
His Holiness Pope Francis concluded his homily by reminding that “ The meal Jesus prepares is the Bread in which he gives himself. Both the place and the meal are Jesus’ gifts for us in the Eucharist. The Bread of heaven is the pledge of eternal life, a concrete anticipation of what awaits us there.”
