«I accompany your ministry and the expectations of your respective countries with my prayer and my blessing»: Leo XIV thus encouraged the expectations of peace of some priests from the Middle East present this morning at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square. While greeting the various groups, the Pontiff also recalled the imminent solemnity of Corpus Domini. “In the Eucharist we contemplate Jesus bread broken and given for each of us”, he said in this regard, noting how “the processions with the Blessed Sacrament which take place in the streets” in various parts of the world are “an expression of popular Eucharistic piety”. And in this regard he encouraged “to keep alive this beautiful demonstration of public testimony to the faith”.
Previously, continuing the catechesis on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, in particular on the Constitution on the sacred liturgy Sacrosanctum Conciliumthe Pope had underlined that the rite “interrupts frenetic activities, bringing us back to the essential”: in the “logic of gratuitousness” of gestures and prayers we discover “another dimension of action, not guided by productive calculations”, and we find “a pause that regenerates the heart”.
