Beloved Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

The month of June is upon us! We begin with prayer to God, asking for His deliverance to calm the storms which may descend upon our earth these coming months. As we pray for this, we also kneel before Him asking that He calm the storms of our heart; those things within each one of us that separates or divides us from God.

God throughout His varied deliverance within salvation history speaks to us in a way that is Eucharistic; that is adjoining each person to Him through the gift of the Trinity. St. Paul explains that each person is sacred because we are begotten by God to serve God. Each person is unique, but all make up the Body of Christ as we partake of the one loaf. We stand in awe that God’s presence surrounds us, contains us, and lives within us, serving us with His divine love and healing our wounds all our days. As He is with us, we are given His Peace.

Wait. There is more. As we are called by our Baptism and receive the Holy Eucharist, we acknowledge our sanctity as the Body of Christ, and we pledge again to give our life to God. This means that we do not stop at the altar and take only. Jesus’ ministry is the mission of service. We are called to be one with God and serve others out of God’s divine love. We accept this love as we partake in the Sacraments and we return this Gift by serving, loving one another through the eyes of faith. Our reception of Communion is a real participation in the Body of Christ. Our reception of the Eucharist is becoming the Body of Christ, the Church.

Let us ponder anew what being Eucharistic means. How does being Eucharistic reveal God in our world today? How do you bring His divine love to one another? Pray with thanksgiving to God for His matchless love that He gave us His Son who is with us always in the Eucharist, the Bread come down from heaven, the Bread of Life. Who is the Eucharist? The Eucharist is Jesus! Jesus speaks to the apostles, His disciples, and us with great love and knows that we need to be nourished to follow Him. He knows the difficulties we will face. With the Eucharist, He gives Himself to us so that we are able to receive Him and continue living His mission each day.

Pope Leo XIV said, “For where the Lord is present, we find all that we need to give strength and meaning to our lives … Strengthened by the food that God gives us, let us bring Jesus to the hearts of all, because Jesus involves everyone in His work of salvation by calling each of us to sit at His table. Blessed are those who are called, for they become witnesses of this love!”

In Evangelii Gaudium, we are reminded the missionary activity does not arise simply from our own abilities, plans and projects, nor from our sheer willpower or our efforts to practice the virtues; it is the result of a profound experience in the company of Jesus. Only then can we testify to a Person, a Life, and thus become apostles.  When we receive Jesus, our hearts are burning and we live the “mission of bringing light, blessing, enlivening, raising, healing, and freeing.”

Join me on June 6, 2026, at 10 a.m. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe for the Ordination to the Permanent Diaconate. For each deacon, his model par excellence is Jesus Christ, the Servant, who lives totally at the service of His Father, for the good of every person. To live their ministry to the fullest, deacons must know Christ intimately and so share the burdens of their ministry. Those who are ordained to the Permanent Diaconate are Eucharistic in their focus and they and their families live within the Body of Christ offering all they are to serve God.

May we live held within the arms of God, that we extend His Divine love to all the people.