John 6:48-54: “I am
the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the desert, and have died.
This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that if anyone eats of it, he
will not die. ... If anyone eats of this bread he shall live forever; and the
bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world.” Many disciples grumbled at this,
"How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" "Amen, amen I say
to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood, you
shall not have life in you. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has life
everlasting and I will raise him up on the last day.”
I am sure that we
all understand the meaning of the petition in” The Our Father” which asks God
to provide us with our daily physical bread. We are not asking for more
physical bread than we need lest we become gluttonous, nor do we ask to be
ignored when it is time to pass out the daily allotment of food, lest we become
desperate and criminal in our attempt to eat. No, we ask God to provide for us
in the best way He can, so that we can care for our bodily needs. In using the pronoun
“us” we acknowledge that we belong to the family of God and must do for others
what God does for us. It will always be this way. Pay it forward, as the
popular expression goes. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us:
2831
But the presence of those who hunger
because they lack bread opens up another profound meaning of this petition. The
drama of hunger in the world calls Christians who pray sincerely to exercise
responsibility toward their brethren, both in their personal behavior and in
their solidarity with the human family. This petition of the Lord's Prayer
cannot be isolated from the parables of the poor man Lazarus and of the Last
Judgment. (Lk 16:19-31; Mt 25:31-46).
There is more to life, however, than satiating our
physical appetites. There is a hunger, a need in each and every one of us to be
fed the Bread of Life. Jesus left us the gift of Himself in the Eucharist for
this very purpose. Again, we see in the Catechism:
2837 "Daily"
(epiousios) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Taken in a
temporal sense, this word is a pedagogical repetition of "this day," to
confirm us in trust "without reservation." Taken in the qualitative
sense, it signifies what is necessary for life, and more broadly every good
thing sufficient for subsistence. Taken literally (epi-ousios: "super-essential"),
it refers directly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, the "medicine
of immortality," without which we have no life within us. Finally
in this connection, its heavenly meaning is evident: "this day" is
the Day of the Lord, the day of the feast of the kingdom, anticipated in the
Eucharist that is already the foretaste of the kingdom to come. For this reason
it is fitting for the Eucharistic liturgy to be celebrated each day.
The Eucharist is
our daily bread. The power belonging to this divine food makes it a bond of
union. Its effect is then understood as unity, so that, gathered into his Body
and made members of him, we may become what we receive.... This also is our
daily bread: the readings you hear each day in church and the hymns you hear
and sing. All these are necessities for our pilgrimage.
The Father in
heaven urges us, as children of heaven, to ask for the bread of heaven.
[Christ] himself is the bread who, sown in the Virgin, raised up in the flesh,
kneaded in the Passion, baked in the oven of the tomb, reserved in churches,
brought to altars, furnishes the faithful each day with food from heaven.
When we partake daily of the Bread of Life, we literally
touch God with our hands, and consume God into our bodies. We consume Him, and
He consumes us. We touch Him, and He touches us. To feed ourselves on the body
of Christ is to understand that we daily need to come to the source of true
life, to partake of the only food we ever will really need in our lives. At
Mass the priest proclaims the words of Christ: “Take this, all of you, and eat
of it, for this is my Body,
which will be given up for you.” To take and eat, of course, also means to take
up the cross, as Christ did after the Last Supper.
In the book The
Redeemer’s Call to Consecrated Souls (Logus Institute Press), Our Lord
speaks to a French nun in the 1930’s. He reveals to her His desire for us to
become “hosts” as He is “host”. Here is what He says:
There is no more
perfect model of abandonment than my Eucharistic Host. See how, without the
least trace of resistance, not even unyieldingness, It lets Itself be touched,
carried, given, allowing Itself to be hidden in the back of the Tabernacle as
well as exposed in the bright light of the monstrance. And even allowing Itself
to be profaned by ungrateful hearts…. Meditate often on this marvelous attitude
of abandonment by the Host, that you may imitate it. Renew again and again this
return of your soul, for while it requires a courageous abdication of self, its…fruit
is an ever deeper divine takeover, a celestial hold on you that transforms you
more and more.
Let us pray to become a perfect “host” as Jesus has
taught us to be.
