The Presence of Christ: Nourishment, Transformation, and Global Unity

Cardinal Woelki: Christ abides in us through the Holy Spirit

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6:51), Cardinal Woelki quoted the evangelist John in his sermon. Eating the body of the Lord means believing and worshiping and “opening to ourselves, handing over our destiny, ourselves, just as we are”. The more this happens, the more deeply he can penetrate our life and shelter it in his divine life.

According to Cardinal Woelki, Christ comes to us bodily as the Risen One and remains in us through his Holy Spirit in order to transform our inner being and create us anew. “That is why we must bring our everyday life into the Eucharist and go into the everyday from the Eucharist.”

In the Eucharistic procession through the streets of the city it is proclaimed: “He is the life of the world, who walks with us on the paths of our everyday life.” The Lord will never leave us alone, especially not in the needs of our life. He will continue to nourish us “with himself, the bread for the life of the world”, which satisfies all hunger and is stronger than death.

Procession and Eucharistic Blessing

The pontifical mass was followed by a solemn procession through downtown Cologne with the Holy of Holies. Archbishop Woelki and the auxiliary bishops Ansgar Puff, Dominikus Schwaderlapp and Rolf Steinhäuser and the cathedral chapter held a statio at the Minorite Church.

The end of the procession was the Eucharistic blessing in Cologne Cathedral. “We have every reason to praise and thank God for today,” said Cardinal Woelki at the end of the blessing. He is grateful for the large community that came together to celebrate this festival together and to strengthen each other’s faith, Woelki continued. A big thank you to everyone involved for making the event a success.

He also expressed his gratitude for the native-speaking communities in the Archdiocese of Cologne, which were among the growing communities in the Archdiocese. They reminded us that we are not just a church in Germany, but the one holy catholic church – worldwide and global. In this unit we would walk our faith path. And it is the common language of faith “in which we were allowed to glorify God today, to praise and worship him”.