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Pastor’s Letter: June 7, 2026

Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,

Peace and blessings to you all! This weekend we celebrate one of my favorite Solemnities on the Church Calendar—Corpus Christi–The Body and Blood of Christ. Every year, this special celebration gives us a vivid reminder of our greatest treasure—Jesus truly present in the Eucharist. The origin of this celebration goes back to the 1200s in Italy. There was a priest who was having some doubt of faith about whether Christ was actually present in the consecrated Host at Mass. Just after he had spoken the words of consecration, blood started to seep from the host and went down onto to his hands and the altar. After this miracle, Pope Urban IV instituted the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. One interesting note, he had asked St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure to both write a set of prayers/hymns for the Feast. It is said that after St. Bonaventure read what St. Thomas prepared, he thought they were perfect and decided not to submit his own. All these centuries later, we are still using the prayers and hymns that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote for us!

The celebration of Corpus Christi is a great fit with our ongoing review of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. We have reviewed in the past about how the Mass is the one perfect sacrifice of Christ. We have also talked about how we are called to participate in that sacrifice. How do we do it? Through the priesthood! If I asked that anyone who is reading this who is a priest to raise their hands…how many would there be? Fr. Albert, Fr. Daniel, and Fr. Blake? Anyone else? Of course, it actually matters what kind of priesthood I’m talking about. As our Catechism reminds us, all of us who are baptized into Christ have a share in His royal priesthood. We call this the common priesthood or the priesthood of the baptized. This is..