God is right here right now

Sermon by Father Jonathan E Moore - LINK HERE

Corpus Christi 2026

God is right here, right now.

Many of you, I know, will have heard or read my reflections on the Eucharist before, and you might be forgiven for wondering what I have left to say. The answer is “lots!” - truth to tell, I’ve only really skimmed over the surface of what has rightly been called “God’s greatest gift”. As we celebrate this Feast of Corpus Christi, the challenge for the preacher is not trying to find something to say, but rather having to restrict his words to a mere ten minutes!

Question 46 of the time-honoured “Penny Catechism” asked: “Where is Jesus Christ?”.

The answer was:- “As God, Jesus Christ is everywhere. As God made man, He is in heaven, and in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar”

Last week, reflecting on the Holy Trinity, we thought about how we come to believe in God. This week’s theme  is not so much “There is a God” as “Here is God”.

The gift of the Holy Eucharist ensures that Jesus Christ is not reduced to a mere character of the past, but that we feel close to Him: the late Pope Francis once reminded us of this “He is our contemporary and we experience the joy of being children who are loved by God”. (Trinity Sunday Angelus 2018) 

In the Gospel, Jesus promises to remain with us forever and it is precisely through His presence and the strength of His Spirit that we can fulfil the mission that He entrusts to us: proclaiming and witnessing to His Gospel to all, to spread our communion with Him and the joy that derives from it.

The Catholic Faith does not call us simply to acknowledge the existence of a God like some bright star, unimaginably remote in the vastness of space. God wants us to know that He is "with us", that He loves us, is interested in our personal history and takes care of each of us, starting from the smallest and the most needy. “He is God up there in heaven, but also down here on earth". 

The poet Francis Thompson deserves to be better known. His poetry reflects his deep Catholic faith, the yardstick against which he measured his world, often finding it wanting. His poem “God’s Kingdom” contains the words:

“Does the fish soar to find the ocean, 

The eagle plunge to find the air—

That we ask of the stars in motion

If they have rumour of thee there?”

They are appropriate to today’s Feast: God in heaven, but also down here on earth. As the Catechism taught us, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Word made flesh and dwelling amongst us, Emmanuel (God with us) is, as God, present everywhere, and as God made man present in heaven, and  also here on earth in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. God became man, dying and rising for us, so that we might be adopted as sons and daughters of God the Father, “Sons in the Son”, confident to address our Father as “Daddy”, and to abandon ourselves to His care just as a little child abandons itself into the arms of a loving parent.

As we contemplate the great truth of Jesus Christ, present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament, we are invited into the mystery of a God who ceaselessly creates, redeems and sanctifies, always with love and out of love.

In the Old Testament, the Lord God says: “I will never forget you, my people” (cf Isaiah 49:15). God chooses to walk together with us. In the hymn by Estelle White, we sing: “Walk with me, O my God, through the darkest night and brightest day”. This is not a pious hope, but a statement of fact. God in heaven, all-seeing, all-powerful, strong to defend and rich in mercy, God right here on earth, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, compassionate, caring, and always there.

Traditionally, Corpus Christi is marked by a public procession, with the Blessed Sacrament carried through the streets of cities and villages. This still happens in some countries, thank God. Saint John Paul II restored the public procession in Rome, after a gap of a century. Pope Francis later moved the procession out of the city of Rome to the seaside town of Ostia (the place where Saint Monica died, by the way).

That Corpus Christi procession bears important witness to the fact that God is not just here on earth for a select and devout few - He loves all His people, without exception. Jesus came to earth, and remains sacramentally present on earth to form a people that are a blessing for all nations and for all people, without exception. urging all believers to go forth with the saving message of God’s love that relieves sins, heals the wounds of the soul and gives salvation.

That witness does not end with large public processions, however. Far from it! In a very real sense, any individual Christian man or woman can carry Jesus with them into the streets, the workplace, the supermarket, the hospital. Whenever we reflect Jesus in our thoughts, words and actions, we proclaim that truth that Jesus is alive and at work in our world today.

Today is a great opportunity to thank God, not only for being there for us , but also for being HERE for us too.