Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
In today’s Old Testament scripture (Deuteronomy 8:2-3,14-16) we hear of the Israelites journey through the desert and the gift of manna that God bestowed upon them to help them get to the Promised Land. Regarding God’s saving intervention, Moses explains to the people that it is “not by bread alone that one lives, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God”. And this is clearly a foreshadowing of what we hear in today’s Gospel and what we celebrate today – the life given to us by the eternal word of God – Jesus Christ, our Bread of Life.
In today’s Gospel (John 6:51-58) – the climax of Jesus’ bread of life discourse – Jesus proclaims himself to be “the living bread” given for the “life of the world”. Jesus goes on to say that anyone who eats this bread will live forever in Him, just as He lives in the Father.
Two weeks ago on Pentecost Sunday we celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit. Today we hear of another gift just as great – the gift of Jesus Himself – His sacramental presence in the Eucharist. And when we consider what Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel we realize what a tremendous gift it is. Jesus gives us this bread for our spiritual nourishment to strengthen and sustain us, to infuse us with His supernatural life so that we might share in His divinity while we journey through this world, and live in intimate union with God forever in the next world.
So like the Israelites, as we journey through this “desert” life towards the Promised Land, we accept and embrace the gift of God’s Word, our Jesus, the Bread of Life. We accept this most gracious gift in faith, knowing that Jesus is the source of life and truly present to us in the Eucharist. We accept the gift of Jesus with trust, disposing our hearts and minds to God no matter what life throws at us. We accept the gift of Jesus in obedience, striving to live our life according to God’s will even as the world pulls us in the opposite direction. We accept the gift of Jesus in humility, aware of our spiritual hunger and our dependence on Jesus to satisfy the longing of our hearts. We accept the gift of Jesus with hope, confident in God’s faithfulness and the Promised Land that awaits us. And maybe, most especially, we accept the gift of Jesus with gratitude, aware that Jesus, in His infinite love for us, gave up His body and shed His blood so that we might live with Him forever.
Moses told the Israelites that God allowed them to be “afflicted with hunger” so that He could feed them with bread from heaven. And it is the same for us two thousand years later. God places in us a spiritual hunger – a hunger for God Himself – and then God satisfies that hunger with the true bread from heaven – Jesus. So nurtured and nourished by Jesus in the Eucharist we go forward as Eucharist for others. With Jesus living in us, we go out into the world bringing Jesus to others, and others to Jesus.
…and on this Father’s Day, we join with all the Fathers (and Mothers) in the world thanking God for the gift of our own children, and the guidance that God provides us as parents. Maybe most of all we thank God for revealing to us just a glimpse of the great love that He has for us – his children – by way of the love we experience for our children.