Every year, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. 

In Canada, it’s always the Sunday following Trinity Sunday. The Masses on Corpus Christi weekend reinforce and reinvigorate the faithful’s belief and hope in the Eucharist. 

It’s a special time to recall and adore the reality that Christ is truly present in the bread and the wine, and constantly offering Himself, for us and to us. 

With a name like ‘Chalice,’ it’s clear that we have always seen a connection between our work and the Eucharist. Which is why last June, we started a new tradition.  

Prior to the pandemic, parishes welcomed us into their Masses to invite parishioners to sponsor a child, and these “sponsorship weekends” could be any weekend throughout the year. But we decided to concentrate them on one weekend, Corpus Christi, last year. 

Through the support and tremendous help of hundreds of priests, deacons and volunteers, we held more than 100 “Corpus Christi sponsorship weekends” across Canada. 

This year, Corpus Christi falls on June 10-11. More than 180 priests have already accepted our invitation to hold sponsorship weekends in their parishes. 

For us, connecting Chalice with Corpus Christi reflects the essence of our purpose: to bring Christ to the poor, and the poor to Christ. 

As sponsors, the Church brings Christ’s loving presence to children experiencing poverty. The Church responds to Jesus’s exhortation to feed, educate, shelter and clothe the vulnerable among us. Each new sponsor joins our mission to reveal Christ to a child in need.  

The Eucharist enables us to achieve this purpose together, as members of Christ’s Body.  When He feeds us in the bread and wine, He transforms us into Himself. 

At the conclusion of the Mass, we are sent out to spread this gift of nourishing love – both to those near us, and those in our global family. That’s how Chalice sponsorship is an act of Eucharistic faith. 

As St. Teresa of Avila wrote: “Christ has no body on earth now but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which He looks with compassion on the world; yours are the feet with which He walks to do good; yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world.”