Solemnity of Corpus Christi – Year C
June 22, 2025 – 10:30 AM
Saint Cecilia Catholic Community
Rev. David Justin Lynch
Genesis 14:18-20 | Psalm 110:1-4
I Corinthians 12:12-26 | Luke 9:11-17
+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
At Saint Cecilia Catholic Community, immigrants matter. Pedro is an immigrant. Natalya is an immigrant. Sadrac is an immigrant. And we’ve had other immigrants as well. Immigrants make us who and what we are as a parish. Except for those part of an indigenous tribe, none of us would be here but for the immigrants who were our forebears.
Yet, the news over the past few weeks has featured aggressive masked men viciously kidnapping ordinary people peacefully going about their lives and imprisoning them in disgusting conditions far from their homes and then whisking them away to distant parts of the world, all of this to allegedly save us from immigrants.
These ICE kidnappers are purportedly acting in the name of “keeping America safe.” As a threshold matter, let’s debunk the myth underlying these putrid acts. Any assertion that immigrants equal crime, is a stupid idea. The undisputed facts are that citizens commit more crimes per population unit than immigrants.
Therefore, ICE deportation activities are not law enforcement to protect public safety. A field hand picking vegetables endangers no one. A factory worker making things that people need endangers no one. Workers who wash dishes, clean hotel rooms, sweep office buildings, and change hospital bedpans are not threats to the public. Their only so-called offense is not having proper papers to justify their existence in the United States. There is nothing bad or immoral about that in any way. Why not just leave them alone and let them live their lives?
The reason is that it would not fit the “America First” narrative. That narrative is, in and of itself, immoral. Why? The Body of Christ, which we celebrate today, encompasses all of humanity, regardless of nationality. In contrast, countries and immigration laws are strictly human constructs. They were not divinely created. Our obligation as Christians is to treat each other as we expect to be treated and to respect the dignity of every person. Kidnapping, imprisonment, and mass deportation are not a part of that. To be clear, I am not endorsing violence. Any violence is wrong, whether perpetrated by ICE or by protestors, except in self-defense.
In case you’re asking what this has to do with today’s Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the answer is, “everything.” Corpus Christi is Latin for “Body of Christ.” Both immigrants and non-immigrants are part of the Body of Christ. To question whether immigrants are part of the Body of Christ is to ask if Christ himself can be divided by a border wall or left in detention. The answer is a resounding no. If we are indeed the Body of Christ, then we belong to one another. And if the Body bleeds, it bleeds at the borders.
Membership in the Body of Christ transcends national, ethnic, and legal status. The Church’s identity is not formed by bloodlines or borders, but by baptism and the Holy Spirit. The early Church itself was composed largely of migrants, refugees, and itinerant people.
In today’s Second Reading, Saint Paul tells the Corinthian church, which was fractured by pride and divided by status: “You are the Body of Christ, and individually members of it.” This is not a metaphor in the modern sense. In Paul’s world, to say “you are the Body of Christ” is to say Christ is still present in the world through all of humanity.
The Church is not merely a human organization. It is a living organism. Christ is its head. All humanity is its organs, each dependent on the others. To hurt one member is to hurt all, but to uplift one is to uplift all. This imagery subverts every human power structure, every program of exclusion, and every kind of tribalism. No one, absolutely no one, is disposable.
The feast of Corpus Christi focuses on the Eucharist. The Eucharist and human identity are inseparable. When the person who gives you communion says, “The Body of Christ,” and you say, “Amen,” you are not merely affirming the Real Presence in the host, but you assent to your vocation to be the presence of Christ in the world.
Traditionally, the Feast of Corpus Christi was about adoration of the sacramental Body of Jesus. But it is so much more than Bread and Wine.
Augustine’s doctrine of the Church, known as Corpus Christi Mysticum, is Latin for “the mystical Body of Christ.” It affirms that the Eucharist creates and sustains the Body of Christ. The bread and wine on the altar and the flesh and blood of humanity are two dimensions of the same mystery. A truly Holy Communion is both sacramental and ethical: to receive Christ means to live as Christ. Thus, if we betray the poor and the vulnerable, we are not just uncharitable—we wound Jesus Himself.
Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart goes a step beyond Augustine and Paul. He includes all of humanity in the Body of Christ, not just those who’ve received the Sacrament of Baptism. For Hart, the doctrine of the Body of Christ is cosmic in scope. He reads Paul’s teaching in First Corinthians fifteen and Romans five to mean that Christ’s work will ultimately encompass all humanity, not by coercion, but by love that restores and transfigures.
According to Hart, the Body of Christ is not complete until all are gathered. True participation in the Body of Christ means acting now as if no one is expendable, and no suffering is beyond redemption. This is not sentimental universalism. It is a call to hope without boundaries and love without fear.
To those who argue, “Christians have a duty to obey the law,” classic Christian moral theology tells us there is no duty to obey an unjust law. To quote Saint Augustine, “an unjust law is no law at all.” Augustine distinguished between human law and the eternal law of divine justice. When human law contradicts eternal law, it loses its moral authority. Obedience to the law is not a virtuous norm in and of itself. The final norm is justice.
Consider these situations. The World War Two Holocaust was legal, but hiding Jews was illegal. Slavery was legal, but helping slaves to freedom was illegal. Racial segregation was legal, but protesting it was illegal. Again, the final norm is justice, not obeying unjust laws simply because they are laws.
The Immigration laws of the United States are patently unjust. Those laws fail to recognize that every migrant is a human person created in God’s image. Human dignity is inviolable. It is not contingent on legal status. Notwithstanding any law, everyone has a natural, God-given right to migrate to seek security, to work, and to a life worthy of human dignity when basic needs cannot be met in their home countries. While Catholic Social teaching acknowledges the right of a nation to control its borders, large-scale deportations of people going about their daily lives in fields and factories go far beyond that.
For Christians, immigration is not a political issue. It is truly a religious issue. Scripture and Christian teaching on the treatment of immigrants unequivocally contradict the government’s present immigration policy.
In the Book of Exodus, we read, “You shall not wrong or oppress an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” This verse links compassion for the stranger directly to Israel’s identity: God’s people were once vulnerable immigrants themselves. Therefore, the memory of their own suffering should inform our moral posture.
In the Book of Leviticus, we find, “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself.” What this passage says is that immigrants are not to be pitied at arm’s length but embraced in love. Jesus Himself embodied this idea when he said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
Today’s Gospel has Jesus feeding thousands of hungry people. He did not ask them about their citizenship or demand to see their papers. All that mattered to him was that they were hungry and needed to be fed. And he fed them with food left over. Given all the food that’s wasted and finds its way to landfills instead of nourishing hungry people, any argument that immigrants are diverting necessary resources falls on deaf ears.
The bottom line is that discrimination against and mistreatment of immigrants, whether done as law enforcement or to preserve the dominant culture, is a grave moral wrong and must be stopped.
The solution is simple. Look to Jesus and what he taught us. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another as Jesus loved us. Here, Jesus matters. Jesus alone is our King. Amamos a los inmigrantes! AMEN.