OSV News photo/Simone Risoluti, Vatican Media

MADRID–More than 1.2 million people filled the streets of Madrid as Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass and led a eucharistic procession through the heart of the Spanish capital June 7 for the solemnity of Corpus Christi, the liturgical feast celebrating the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

“We are gathered around the Eucharist, the gift of Christ’s living presence among us. He who wished to offer us his life so that we might enter into communion with the Father and become his children, is here as the living Bread come down from heaven, to nourish us with the very life of God, with a love stronger than death,” Pope Leo said in his homily.

“Just as Christ gives himself as food in the eucharistic celebration, the procession shows that he is not confined to the church, but comes out to meet us,” he added. “Jesus travels the streets, crosses the squares and visits our neighborhoods, dwelling in the settings of our daily lives.”

Eucharistic grace to transform lives

The pope offered Mass in the Plaza de Cibeles, the city’s iconic neoclassical fountain square where several of Madrid’s grand avenues converge, before leading the Corpus Christi procession that wound nearly a mile and a half through streets adorned with elaborate floral carpets crafted by local artisans from more than 30,000 carnations.

Children who recently received the sacrament of First Communion scattered flower petals and religious sisters carried candles near the front of the long procession of priests and bishops, culminating with a golden canopy under which Pope Leo carried the large monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament. People in the crowd knelt down and tossed flowers as the Eucharist passed by.

In his homily, Pope Leo reflected on the power of eucharistic grace to transform people’s lives.

“It is not merely a matter of bringing out the monstrance, but of allowing ourselves to be brought out of our selfishness and indifference, of a comfortable, private faith, so as to respond to his invitation to conversion, to change our perspective, and to welcome his presence which transforms us,” the pope said, telling Spaniards to live their faith courageously in the public square.

The task of Spain today and in the future, the pope said, is to “ensure that the religiosity which has shaped and defined this country for centuries is not a museum of the past to be visited, but a school of faith from which to draw even today.”

In a country struggling with extreme political polarization and unhealed wounds of the Civil War, the pope said the living faith can transform society as “no one can kneel before the Lord” and at the same time “despise their brother.”

Catholic roots of Spain can be “a school” that “teaches us of the gratuitousness of love that becomes a gift, so that it may flow among us and break the chains of all selfishness,” and one “from which we learn that God is a real presence and that we too are called to be present in the realities and challenges of society, not shying away, but personally committing ourselves to the building of the common good.”

Silent fidelity to the Eucharist

As Pope Leo passed by in the procession, he may have recognized one of the faces in the crowd.

Twenty-eight-year-old Erci Torres from Peru, was confirmed by Pope Leo when he served as her bishop at the Santa Rosa de Lima parish in Chiclayo. Today she lives in Madrid and was thrilled to see the pope again.

“It was a very unforgettable experience,” Torres told OSV News. “And to imagine that he is now the pope is incredible.”

During the Mass, Pope Leo invoked St. Manuel González García, an early 20th-century Spanish bishop who passionately urged people to recognize the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Today the saint is known as “the bishop of the abandoned tabernacle” because on his tomb in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of Palencia Cathedral, it is written, “I ask to be buried next to a tabernacle, so that my bones after my death, like my tongue and my pen in life, may always be repeating to those who pass by: ‘Jesus is here! Jesus is here! Do not leave him abandoned!'”

A man wears a T-shirt with an image of Pope Leo XIV as the pontiff celebrates Mass at Plaza de Cibeles in Madrid June 7, during his apostolic journey to Spain. OSV News photo/Violeta Santos Moura, Reuters

Pope Leo said, “His life reminds us that the Eucharist should be honored not only during great celebrations or on special occasions, but also through the silent fidelity of those who accompany the Lord with a humble and quiet friendship that is nourished day by day.”

The pope also drew on the poetry of St. John of the Cross, who, while imprisoned in Toledo around the time of Corpus Christi in 1578, found the Lord in the darkness of his cell, which the pope described as “a presence from which emanates a light that never fades.”

Special moment for Madrileños

Crowds lined the major avenues leading to the plaza for hours before the Mass began, with 2,300 eucharistic ministers needed to distribute communion to the assembled faithful. About 400 musicians provided music for the liturgy, including an orchestral ensemble.

Among the crowd was the Adam family, eight siblings who waited together for hours to take part in the papal Mass. Seventeen-year-old Patricia Adam is the second oldest of the 8 siblings. Her older sister played violin in the orchestra for the papal Mass.

“For me, my Catholic faith is living a relationship with God and with Jesus in intimacy,” Adam said. “Being here with my family means a lot because it is not just a relationship one to one, but all together with God.”

Nearby 23-year-old Lucia waited with her four siblings and 17 cousins as they attended the Mass together.

“Faith has always been so important to me,” she said. “I have an aunt who is a nun. She is from the Missionaries of Charity. She’s my best example of faith.”

The elaborate floral carpets lining the Calle de Alcalá were created by artisans from the Galician town of Ponteareas, working alongside more than 160 volunteers. The 16 large carpets depicting Eucharistic and Christian symbols lined the streets.

“The solemn processions held on this day have for centuries shaped the piety, art, music, architecture and life of the Spanish people,” Pope Leo said. “Even today, they still express and manifest the spiritual sentiments of this country through the beauty and elegance of the floral carpets, the altars erected in the streets, the carefully crafted monstrances and stands, the hymns and the liturgical vestments.”

For Spaniards, Corpus Christi remains one of the country’s most beloved public expressions of faith and an example of how deeply rooted popular piety remains in Spanish culture.

“This is not an exhibition,” the pope said. “It is a profession of faith in the presence of the risen Lord, who is alive and continues to walk among us, who becomes bread to satiate our hunger for life, and visits the recesses of our hearts and history, even those shrouded in darkness.”

“May the Lord Jesus, present in the Eucharist, transform you into bread that is broken, given, and offered, so that a life of fullness may spring forth for you, for your families, and for your country.”