Monday June 15th: Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth
June 15, 2026
Tuesday June 16th: Jesus Showed the Way
June 16, 2026
–Archbishop at Cathedral Corpus Christi
By Klysha Best
On the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon used his homily at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, to challenge the faithful to move beyond a materialistic faith and embrace the radical demands of the Eucharist: fellowship with God and with one another.
Drawing from Deuteronomy, the Archbishop applied Israel’s desert journey to Trinidad and Tobago.
“Sixty something years ago, we left Egypt,” he said, referring to independence. “None of our ancestors put oil in the ground. None gave us our fertile soil. That is a gift from God.” But he warned the nation has failed the test.
“Rather than recognising that man does not live by bread alone, we only wanted to eat the bread and not the Giver of the bread. Storing up more for ourselves, leaving many in want and destitution.”
He said the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land could have taken less than a month, but Israel wandered 40 years because “God had to change their heart.”
“We have to journey through our travails because God needs to change the heart of this nation,” he said.
The Archbishop accused Trinidad and Tobago of becoming obsessed with material things. “We have become a nation that wants only the material stuff, only what is glamorous. Rather than using God’s gifts for the development of all our people, we have taken them to feed ourselves and leave others behind.”
Turning to the Second Reading 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, the Archbishop emphasised that the Eucharist is not a private devotion.
“When we come together because of our baptism, we are one people. We are the body of Christ. Jesus is present in us as He is present in the Eucharist.”
He reminded the congregation of the biblical question: “Where is your brother?” and declared the answer plainly.
“Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper. That’s who I am.”
He held up Mother Teresa as a model: silent adoration before the Eucharist strengthened her resolve to serve the poorest of the poor.
“Fellowship with the Eucharist and fellowship with the poor spring from a single devotion—to Jesus who comes to us in manifold ways.”
The Archbishop then recalled John’s Gospel where Jesus declares, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” When disciples recoiled, Jesus did not soften His words. He used an even more graphic term, trogo, meaning to tear flesh with the teeth.
“He makes the claim even stronger,” Archbishop Gordon said. “Unless you tear my flesh with your teeth, you cannot have life in me.”
That teaching, he said, is a revealed doctrine handed down by the Church.
He concluded by calling the faithful to raise their eyes beyond earthly striving.
“While we scratch for an existence and step over each other, He asks us to see who we are called to become. You are sons and daughters of God. You feed on the bread of angels. You receive God Himself at the Eucharist.”
He invited the congregation to ask for the grace to “become who we already are”, the body of Christ, united not only to God but to one another, especially the poor and forgotten.
The Corpus Christi Mass concluded with a procession through East Port of Spain. But the Archbishop’s words lingered: a call to conversion, fellowship, and a faith that feeds both soul and nation.
