Homily<\/p>\n
Fr Frank Brennan SJ<\/p>\n
7 June 2026<\/p>\n
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a; Psalm 147; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:51-58<\/p>\n
Listen at soundcloud.com<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Today we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi \u2013 the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.\u00a0 Each one of us remembers our first communion. On that day, everyone of us displayed reverence and some sense of mystery.\u00a0 Back then we wondered, and to this day we still wonder, what Paul meant when he asked the Corinthians: \u2018The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?\u2019\u00a0 Whatever the mystery, each of us declares, \u2018Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.\u00a0 Say but the word and I shall be healed.\u2019\u00a0 Pope Francis used delight in reminding us that the Eucharist \u2018is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak\u2019[1]<\/a>.\u00a0 It is food for the journey as we make our faltering way to the Father.\u00a0 We all need the medicine; we all need the nourishment.<\/p>\n Pope Leo will be sure to find great inspiration in the follow up observation by Paul to the Corinthians in today\u2019s second reading: \u2018Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.\u2019\u00a0 Afterall Leo\u2019s motto is In Illo Uno Unum (In the One, we are one) which he adopted when he first became a bishop, referring to St Augustine\u2019s observation on Psalm 127 that \u2018although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one.\u2019<\/p>\n In his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas on Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, Leo reflects on the fact that artificial intelligence is likely to have some profoundly good effects and some profoundly bad effects, and on all of us.\u00a0 In the near future, AI might help us cure diseases which previously seemed incurable; AI might help us build cheaper and better houses; and AI might help us to retrieve information so much more efficiently and \u00a0to learn so much more than we thought we could.\u00a0 On the other hand, AI might contribute to large scale job losses; AI might make war even more deadly and protracted.\u00a0 Leo warns that \u2018the growing ease with which autonomous weapons systems can be deployed makes war more \u201cfeasible\u201d and less subject to human control\u2019. [2]<\/a>Whatever the good and bad effects of AI, it should cause humanity to be more united in solidarity in our human identity.\u00a0 Leo insists that \u2018we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of \u201cintelligence\u201d with that of human beings\u2019[3]<\/a> \u2018who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity\u2019.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n In his encyclical, Leo suggests that what we need in the age of AI is \u2018a Eucharistic spirituality, that is, a spirituality of ecclesial unity in love\u2019.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0He says: \u2018In the Eucharist we find a visible manifestation of the reality that we \u201care the Church of Christ, his members, his body. We are brothers and sisters in him. And in Christ, though many and diverse, we are one: In Illo uno unum.\u201d\u2019[6]<\/a><\/p>\n He goes on to say: \u2018The Eucharist opens us to justice and sharing, with a preferential concern for those who are burdened by poverty or marginalization. And while new economic and technological networks can generate exclusion, isolation and dependencies, the Church \u2014 nourished by the Eucharist \u2014 is called to make visible a different paradigm, one that preserves human connections, gives a voice to the invisible and ensures that processes are aimed at respecting people\u2019s dignity.\u2019[7]<\/a><\/p>\n This Sunday as we approach the table of the Lord, each of us has good grounds to fear that AI might generate exclusion, isolation and dependence.\u00a0 But we come to the table in hope that together nourished by the Eucharist we can go forth giving voice to the invisible and ensuring that processes are aimed at respecting rather than degrading people\u2019s dignity.<\/p>\n There\u2019s been a lot of discussion about Leo\u2019s encyclical, and not\u00a0 just in church circles.\u00a0 I was particularly taken by a letter to the New York Times by a Jewish writer who used to work for IBM.\u00a0 He wrote:[8]<\/a><\/p>\n [I]n a future shaped by advanced artificial intelligence, religion may not diminish but instead acquire renewed relevance. Religion may gain new footing, not as a retreat from science, but as a response to it.<\/p>\n The more fully human cognition is modeled, the more attention may turn to what cannot be captured in those models: my subjective experience, moral awareness, spiritual longing, private thoughts, feelings and awareness that cannot be fully explained by biology or any other means.<\/p>\n Far from being displaced by technological progress, religious thought could be reasserted as a framework for interpreting what machines cannot verify or reproduce. Faith, ritual and metaphysical belief may function less as inherited tradition and more as a conscious affirmation of human distinctiveness in an increasingly synthetic world.<\/p>\n Paradoxically, the advance of artificial intelligence may intensify rather than dissolve questions of meaning, purpose and transcendence, leaving religion positioned not at the margins of modernity, but directly at its centre.<\/p>\n As we receive food for the journey today, let\u2019s pray that questions of meaning, purpose and transcendence may intensify and let\u2019s call to mind that first innocent fervour we displayed at our own first communion.\u00a0 In the Sequence at today\u2019s mass, we pray:<\/p>\n Very bread, good shepherd, tend us, You who all things can and know, Soon we will respond to the priest\u2019s declaration: \u2018Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.\u2019\u00a0 We are indeed blessed to be so called.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO, Adjunct Professor of Thomas More Law School at ACU and Adjunct Research Professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, is a former Rector of Newman College, University of Melbourne, and CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA). His latest books include\u00a0Pope Francis: the Disruptive Pilgrims Guide<\/a>\u00a0(ATF Theology, 2025), and\u00a0<\/a>Gerard Brennan\u2019s Articles and Speeches: Maintaining the Law\u2019s Skeleton of Principle (2 volumes)\u00a0<\/a>(Connor Court, 2025).\u00a0<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Evangelii Gaudium<\/a>, #47 and Amoris Laetitia Footnote 351.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Magnifica Humanitas #197<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid #99<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ibid<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ibid #234<\/p>\n
Jesu, of your love befriend us,
You refresh us, you defend us,
Your eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see.<\/p>\n
Who on earth such food bestow,
Grant us with your saints, though lowest,
Where the heav\u2019nly feast you show,
Fellow heirs and guests to be. Amen. Alleluia.<\/p>\n