Deut. 8:2-3, 14b-16a; Ps:147:12-15, 19-20; 1Cor. 10:16-17; Jn. 6:51-58
“The cup of blessing” and “the bread that we break” unites the many into the one body of Christ not as a people of race, culture, or nationality but as a people of origin from the one God in three Persons. While race, culture and nationality give the body its human origin it is the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ that raises it up to it divine origin.
Some seek to use the human origin as a weapon of division to bring crisis and division extending the journey in the “terrible desert with its saraph serpents and scorpions” wanting to poison the water of life. Justice comes from God in his body and blood when we gather to break bread and recognize Christ present in all our brothers and sisters.
Today there are many false prophets in the streets who shield their face of evil with the veil of justice but as the sun sets their true image is revealed in their crimes to humanity. Those who seek justice work for peace while those who seek power work their crimes. Peace will come when hearts turn to worship Christ not worshipping an ideology. The miracle is in the person created in the image of Christ, a transformation of the soul into the image of Christ not into the image of an ideology.
Division is not only in the public square but in the church as the cornerstone of faith is his body and blood in the Eucharist when rejected among people of faith. The sacrifice he leaves us on the altar to transform our very being from the beginning of the church, rejected by the Jews remains questioned by people of all faiths who still ask “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
In the eyes of reason alone miracles don’t exist but in the eyes of faith life and all its existence begins as a miracle and anything is possible for God. The miracle we seek is the eternal life Jesus promises to the believer who receives him in body and blood not in faith alone but in the act of consumption found in the Eucharist, “whoever eats this bread will live forever”. “Thousands are, as one, receivers, One, as thousands of believers, eats of him who cannot waste”.
This food, the body and blood of Christ “cannot waste” in preparing us to answer the call he has designated for us in serving the greater good. This is social justice, the work of the church to go forth as a sign of Christ in the work of salvation. We were not created to live by bread alone but from the bread of life which directs our ministry, provides purpose and meaning, and allows us even to suffer with Christ always present in us and through us.
Years back on a pilgrimage to Israel our guide was a very well educated older Jewish man with a sense of humor. He was also in much better physical shape than a lot of us younger people. During daily Mass he always sat in the back but remained in church. He had a good understanding of Christian history and was a very good guide. When discussing the faith of the church in transubstantiation, the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, it was a stumbling block for him. His response was “it cannot be that easy”. It is that easy if it is the will of God who is above all human understanding to be transformative.
The choice we make makes us to receive or reject his gift. In the end “Bad and good the feast are sharing, of what divers dooms preparing, endless death, or endless life”. Today we share the feast of the fruit the world has prepared and the choice we make is one that passes into death. Christ invites us to receive the cup of his blood and the bread of his body that passes into life to live eternally with him. We can look to Jesus passion, death, and resurrection as the trifecta of his great miracle. We can also look at his coming in birth, his return in the Holy Spirit, and his remaining in the Eucharist as the trifecta of his loving presence with us.
Let us remain in him in his Most Holy Body and Blood, the Eucharist. If we seek a world to be transformative we will continue to be disillusioned. If we seek transformation of ourselves in Christ’s body and blood the world will be transformed. May God bless you and keep you, may his face shine upon you now and forever.
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