GAIN STRENGTH FROM THE EUCHARIST FOR MISSIONARY ACTIVITY

VATICAN CITY, MAY 30, 2002 (VIS) - At 7 p.m.today, Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Pope presided at the Mass celebrated by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar general for the diocese of Rome, on the square in front of St. John Lateran Basilica. The Holy Father gave the homily during the Mass.

"Today is a solemn feast," said John Paul II, "a feast in which we relive the first sacred supper. Through a public and solemn act, we glorify and adore the Bread and the Wine that were transformed into the true Body and true Blood of the Redeemer."

"The Eucharist," he continued, "is our memory alive! ... From the Eucharist, 'font and culmination of all evangelization', our Church in Rome must also acquire daily strength and motivation for missionary activity and for all forms of Christian testimony in the city of man."

"The Pope emphasized that the people of God "need the Eucharist and it is the Eucharist in fact which makes them a missionary Church. But is this possible without priests that renew the Eucharistic mystery?"

"For this reason," he concluded, "on this solemn day, I invite you to pray for the success of the Diocesan Ecclesial Congress that will begin next Monday in St. John Lateran Basilica and will dedicate special attention to the subject of vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life."

After the mass, the Pope presided over the Eucharistic procession along Via Merulana to St. Mary Major Basilica. Along the way, thousands of faithful prayed and sang, accompanying the Blessed Sacrament. A canopied vehicle carried the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance before which the Pope knelt in prayer.

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