**Solennity of the Body and Blood of Christ, celebrated in Portugal on the Sunday after Trinity (June 7, 2026), is the feast that contemplates the Eucharistic gift in its fullness: not just the liturgical rite, but the very Mystery that the rite celebrates, the Son of God who gives Himself as food.**

**The first reading (Gen 14:18-20) evokes Melchizedek offering bread and wine to the Most High. The second (1 Cor 11:23-26) conveys the words of the Institution in Pauline tradition. The Gospel (Lk 9:11b-17) narrates the multiplication of loaves as a prefiguration of the Eucharist.**

**Mariology has a specific place on this solemnity: Mary, whom John Paul II called «the Eucharistic Woman» in his encyclical *Ecclesia de Eucharistia* (2003), is the one who gave the world the Bread of Life, who first received Christ’s Body in herself, who first «preserved» the Eucharist in its fullest sense, in her own womb for nine months.**

**I. Melchizedek and the Eucharist: The Old Testament Preface**

**Gen 14:18-20 is one of the most enigmatic and richest texts of the Old Testament: «Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine. He was a priest of the Most High God, and blessed Abram saying, Blessed be Abram by the Most High God, creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be the Most High God, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.»**

**The Letter to the Hebrews (Heb 7) extensively developed the typology of Melchizedek as a prefiguration of Christ: a priest «according to the order of Melchizedek» (Ps 110:4, cited in Heb 5:6 and 7:17), an eternal priest, not through Levitical lineage but by divine will. The «bread and wine» that Melchizedek offers have, in this typology, a direct Eucharistic resonance: the Old Testament offering of bread and wine pointed towards Christ’s offering at the Last Supper, «This is my body» (Lk 22:19), «This cup is the new covenant in my blood» (Lk 22:20).**

**The typology of Melchizedek also illuminates Mary’s figure: Melchizedek who «brought forth bread and wine» prefigures Mary who brought into the world the «bread» Eucharistic, Christ’s Body. There is a structural analogy between the two: Melchizedek appears without genealogy, as a mysterious figure of origin. Mary appears as «full of grace» (kecharitômenê), divinely originated in the sense that what she is comes entirely from God. Melchizedek offers bread and wine «to the Most High God». Mary offers to the Father the Son whom she generated, the purest and most complete offering ever made to the Creator by a creature.**

**II. «Hoc facite in meam commemorationem»: The Eucharist as Memorial**

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 conveys the earliest written account of the Institution of the Eucharist (~54-55 AD, predating the Synoptic Gospels): “The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and after giving thanks, broke it and said: This is my body, which is for you. Do this in memory of me.” The Pauline formula, “do this in memory of me” (touto poieite eis tên emên anamnêsin), is central to Eucharistic theology: the biblical “memory” is not a mere mental recollection but an active representation, making the past present, and the unique sacrifice of Christ actualized in the Mass.

The theology of the Eucharistic “memory” has a significant Marian dimension: Mary is the “living memory” of Jesus in the fullest sense. She who “kept and pondered” (Luke 2:19, 51) was, for the post-Paschal community, the privileged spokesperson of the memories of Jesus’ childhood mysteries, memories sought from her by tradition and incorporated into Luke’s Gospel. The “eucharistic woman” that John Paul II sees in Mary is not only she who generated Christ’s Body, but also she who “remembered” him most deeply, who “preserved” the memorial of his entire life with the fidelity called for by “do this in memory of me” to every Christian.

The “mystery of faith” announced by Paul (“proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes“, 1 Corinthians 11:26) has a eschatological dimension illuminated by the figure of Mary: the Eucharist is the convergence point between the past (the historical sacrifice of the Cross), the present (the sacramental actualization in the Mass), and the future (the escatological banquet of the Kingdom). Mary, who lived Christ’s historical past uniquely, who is present in the Church today, and who is the “sign” of eschatological hope (the Assumption as a foreshadowing of resurrection of the flesh), is the figure that unites these three times of the Eucharist in a singular way.

III. The Multiplication of Loaves: Prefiguration and Model

Luke 9:11b-17 narrates the multiplication of loaves with deliberately Eucharistic terminology: Jesus “took the five loaves and two fish, lifted up his eyes to heaven, blessed them, broke them, and distributed them to the disciples for them to serve the crowd” (Luke 9:16). The four verbs—”took“, “blessed“, “broke“, “distributed“—repeat exactly those of the Last Supper (Luke 22:19). Luke emphasizes deliberately the continuity: the multiplication of loaves in the desert is a prefiguration of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the fulfillment of the multiplication.

The context of the multiplication (Jesus preaching about the Kingdom of God and healing the sick, Luke 9:11) recalls that the Eucharist is not separable from proclamation and healing: the “bread” Jesus gives is inseparable from the “word” he proclaims and the “healing” he performs. The Eucharist “completes” what preaching begins and what healing signals: the definitive communion with God inaugurated by the Kingdom. This unity—Word, Sacrament, Service—is the model for Christian life nourished by the Eucharist.

# Maria and the Multiplication of Loaves: A Typological Connection Explored

Mary has a typological connection with the multiplication of loaves that tradition has explored: Mary is the “place” where the original “multiplication” took place, the one Son of God who “multiplied” to feed the whole world, becoming “bread” in her womb to be distributed throughout the world in the Eucharist. This is not a quantitative multiplication but one of communicability: the unique gift of God that, through Mary’s womb, became accessible to all humanity across time, “do this in memory of me.”

## IV. Mary, “Eucharistic Woman”: The Theology of John Paul II

John Paul II, in *Ecclesia de Eucharistia* (2003), dedicated an entire chapter to Mary as the “Eucharistic Woman” (nos. 53-58). The central argument is that Mary’s attitude towards the Mystery—to “receive, preserve, contemplate, and break open”—is the model for the eucharistic attitude that every Christian is called to embrace. Mary who “received” the incarnate Word in her “fiat” is the model for those who receive Communion. Mary who “preserved” the Word in her heart is the model for post-Communion contemplation. Mary who “broke open,” sharing the gift without reservation, as she hurriedly shared it with Elizabeth, is the model for eucharistic irradiation into the world.

The term “Eucharistic Woman” also sheds light on Mary’s presence throughout the entire life of the Church: if the Eucharist is the center of church life, and Mary is the “Mother of the Church” (Paul VI, 1964), then Mary is always present where the Eucharist is celebrated, not as a celebrant but as one who understands the Mystery most deeply and lived it most fully. Medieval churches that built the main altar beneath a Marian retable visually expressed this understanding: the Eucharist and Mary are inseparable, not because Mary is co-redemptor in a strict sense, but because she was the “place” where redemption became possible.

The Corpus Christi feast in Portugal, with its processions, flower-covered streets, and intense devotion transforming public spaces, has an implicit Marian resonance: the Eucharistic procession through the streets is the “Visitation” of Christ to the world, the same Christ that Mary hurriedly carried to Elizabeth’s house as he is now carried in the streets by the faithful who receive him. Mary, who was the “first Eucharistic procession,” carrying the Body of Christ in her virgin womb across the Judean mountains, is the unseen patroness of all Corpus Christi processions that enrich the Church’s faith in Portugal and around the world.

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*Mary, the “Eucharistic Woman” who received the Bread from Heaven in her virgin womb and shared it with the world through her motherhood, is the most eloquent icon of the Mystery celebrated by Corpus Christi: God giving himself as food so that the world may live forever.*

## References

– John Paul II, *Ecclesia de Eucharistia*, nos. 53-58 (2003).
– Vatican Council II, *Sacrosanctum Concilium*, nos. 47-48 (1963).
– J. Ratzinger, *Introduction to the Spirit of Liturgy* (2000).
– X. Léon-Dufour, *Sharing in the Eucharistic Meal* (1982).
– R. Brown, *The Gospel According to John*, vol. I (1966).

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