An estimated 1.2 million people joined Pope Leo in the center of Madrid at a festive celebration of the Eucharist and the traditional Corpus Christ procession on a stretch of the city’s longest street, Calle de Alcalá, on Sunday, June 7, under a blazing sun, in a public manifestation that the faith is still very much alive in this ancient Christian land. It was the largest event Pope Leo has presided over since his election.

Thousands, including whole families, began to arrive here at the crack of dawn to ensure a good place in the Plaza de Cibeles or along the streets leading into it for this mega religious event, which appeared well organized by the city authorities, and was conducted under high security for the pope’s visit.

The capital city was decorated in a spectacular way with flowers, flags of the Vatican and Spain, and banners bearing the motto for Leo’s visit, “Alzad la Mirada” (“Look up” or “Look around you”). The motto conveyed a message of hope at a time of war in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere in what Pope Francis had labeled “a third world war, waged piecemeal.”

Leo’s visit has brought immense joy and hope to this city of 3.5 million people, as was strikingly evident before Mass when, after receiving the keys to the city from its mayor, he drove in an open popemobile across Calle Alcalá, the city’s longest street, and the crowded Plaza de Cibeles, to thunderous cheers and the chant of “Esta es la juventud del papa” (“this is the youth of the pope.”) More than half a million young people had joined him for the prayer vigil at the Bernabéu stadium last evening, and they were present in force, too, for the Mass and procession this morning. Their presence at these events appeared to confirm the reports that a religious revival among the youth may be underway here in Spain, as in some other  European countries.

The first Augustinian pope got a rousing cheer from 25 friars of the Augustinian Recollects from Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, and other Latin American countries as well as from seven religious sisters from the same order from Guatemala, Tanzania and other parts of Africa, when he passed in front of them in the popemobile. “We are so proud of Pope Leo; he is one of our family,” Francisco, a young friar from Colombia studying theology here told America before the pope arrived.

Cardinal José Cobo Cano welcomed the pope at the beginning of Mass saying that God had blessed the people of Madrid by his visit and now, with the Eucharistic procession, “God again walks among the people on the streets of Madrid.”

“As I begin my visit to Spain, it is with a heart filled with joy that I preside over this celebration on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi,” a visibly happy Pope Leo told the million-plus crowd present in the Plaza de Cibeles and surrounding streets, and those following the celebration on television. The crowd was, in fact, bigger than organizers had expected, and the police eventually had to close the entrances to the event.

Speaking in Spanish from under a canopied platform in front of Madrid’s city hall, Leo said, “We are gathered around the Eucharist, the gift of Christ’s living presence among us…with a love that is stronger than death.”

He recalled, in his homily, that “this awareness of the Lord’s presence in the Eucharistic Bread is deeply rooted in the faith and the history of your people” and noted how here in Madrid, as in many other parts of Spain, the celebration of Corpus Christi “is a way of returning to the heart of the faith to renew our love and fidelity to God.”

For centuries, he said, the solemn processions held on this day “have shaped the piety, art, music, architecture and life of the Spanish people.” Even today, he added, “They still express and manifest the spiritual sentiments of this country through the beauty and elegance of the floral carpets, the altars erected in the streets, the carefully crafted monstrances and stands, the hymns and the liturgical vestments.” On the other side of the plaza, a beautiful floral carpet was laid out on the first stretch of Calle Alcalá, leading out of the square, on which the pope would walk in procession at the end of Mass.

“This is not an exhibition, a remnant of folklore or a simple display of beauty,” the pope continued. “It is a profession of faith in the presence of the risen Lord, who is alive and continues to walk among us…. and visits the recesses of our hearts and history, even those shrouded in darkness.”

He told them, “just as Christ gives himself as food in the Eucharistic celebration, the procession shows that he is not confined to the church, but comes out to meet us. Jesus travels the streets, crosses the squares and visits our neighborhoods, dwelling in the settings of our daily lives.”

The missionary pope who had participated in such processions in Peru reminded his many listeners, “He is a God who is close to us, who walks with his people, the Lord of history. He is comfort to the weak, light for families, hope for the sick and peace for those who suffer.”

He said, “The Christ who processes through the streets in the monstrance is the same one who identifies with the poor, the downtrodden, those who are alone and forsaken.”

Pope Leo remarked that is was “no coincidence” that the church in Spain has long combined the celebration of Corpus Christi with its Day for Charity because “it is not merely a matter of bringing out the monstrance, but of allowing ourselves to be brought out of our selfishness and indifference, of a comfortable, private faith, so as to respond to his invitation to conversion, to change our perspective, and to welcome his presence which transforms us and makes us builders of a new world.”

For this reason, he said, today’s procession “stands as an invitation in the present moment” to “remember what God has done for us” and “to understand who the Lord is, so as not to fall into the temptation of trusting in other idols and feeding on bread that does not satisfy.”

He said the task of Spain today and in the future is “to ensure that the religiosity which has shaped and defined this country for centuries is not a museum of the past to be visited, but a school of faith from which to draw even today: a school that teaches us to kneel before God and before our neighbor, because no one can kneel before the Lord and despise their brother.” 

This religiosity is, he said, a school that teaches us “the gratuitousness of love” and “to break the chains of all selfishness,” a school “from which we learn that God is a real presence and that we too are called to be present in the realities and challenges of society, not shying away, but personally committing ourselves to the building of the common good.”

He recalled how the Spanish saint, John of the Cross, “while imprisoned in harsh conditions in the convent prison of Toledo, precisely around the time of Corpus Christi in 1578, recognized the hidden presence of the Lord in the darkness of his cell.”

Leo invited people “to open ourselves to the encounter with [God], let us allow him to quench the thirst of our hearts, so that we may then go forth into the paths of life and history, bringing to the people this stream of fresh water, a stream of love, peace, justice and joy.”

He concluded by reminding them that this Eucharistic celebration “does not enclose us in private devotion, but sends us out to refresh our brothers and sisters, our families, the poor, the suffering, and those who have lost hope;” moreover, it “transforms us and makes us protagonists of the transformation of history, a sign of hope for those we meet.”

The crowd, which had listened in silence, burst into applause when the pope finished speaking. Leo went on to celebrate the Mass with at least five cardinals, 120 bishops and 1,500 priests, accompanied by a choir of 400. Another 2,500 lay men and women, women religious and priests assisted with distributing Communion to a remarkably silent crowd.

At the end of Mass, a bareheaded Pope Leo carried the 4.4 pound monstrance in a spectacular and moving procession, in which children threw flower petals before him, through the Plaza de Cibeles, and 400 meters up and down the floral carpeted Calle Alcalá, accompanied by singing and prayers. When it ended, the million plus crowd broke into rhythmic applause, and Leo smiled broadly and waved to them. It was a profoundly religious experience that he and they are likely to treasure in their hearts for many years.

Gerard O’Connell is America’s senior Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.