How significant it must be for you, men and women of the agricultural world to contemplate on the altar this miracle which crowns and exalts the very wonders of nature. Is not a miracle worked each day when a seed becomes an ear of corn and so many grains from it ripen to be ground and made into bread? Is not the cluster of grapes that hangs on the branch of the vine one of nature's miracles? All this mysteriously bears the mark of Christ, since 'all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made' (Jn 1:3).

But greater still is the event of grace in which the Word and the Spirit of God make the bread and wine, 'fruit of the earth and work of human hands', the Body and Blood of the Redeemer. The Jubilee grace that you have come to implore is none other than a superabundance of Eucharistic grace, the power that raises us and heals us from within by grafting us on to Christ."