Become "Bread" to One Another

DaVinci's Last Supper

Sunday we celebrated the Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Eucharist, a Greek word meaning “thanksgiving”: thanks to God for the gift of salvation, life in God and with God forever. 

There have been many impressive meals in history. There was the first supper, so the Book of Genesis says, where the entree was forbidden fruit. And the Passover, the Seder service, remembering the deliverance of the Hebrews from their oppressors in ancient Egypt.

The meal table often is the center of family life. We gather in love and friendship and conversation. Families celebrate birthdays, marriages, retirement, and holiday feasts. 

In our global Catholic family, the altar or table of the Lord is the center of our faith community. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper, to re-enact the Easter mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus Christ so that we can re-experience our salvation and nurture the life of God within us.

The word of God takes us back to the liberation of the Hebrews. Moses mediates a covenant in a so-called “blood” ritual which symbolizes that God and the Hebrews share the same divine life. We too carry God’s life. 

The Letter to the Hebrews compares the animal sacrifices in the Temple to the bodily sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Jesus through his death and resurrection opened up to us life beyond this earthly life. 

The Gospel according to Mark recalls the last supper or Passover of Jesus in the upper room in Jerusalem. 

When Jesus sat down to that supper, he faced three challenges:

First: He had to leave us and yet He wanted to stay with us. How did he solve this challenge? Listen to His words: This is my body; this is my blood. The bread and wine become sacramentally the Living Christ, his presence among us until He comes again.

The second challenge: Jesus wanted to die for each one of us and yet He could die only once as a human being. Listen to His words: Do this in remembrance of me. The same victim who died for us centuries ago returns to this sacrificial meal today.

The third challenge: Jesus wanted to be one with us and yet this was impossible this side of heaven. Listen to His words: Take and eat; take and drink. The bread and wine become sacramentally the living Christ. Jesus gives us his body and blood.

Yes, the Eucharist is the real presence of the living Christ, sacramentally and mystically. The purpose is to form us into missionary disciples of Jesus. We go out to feed others. Many people hunger for bread; others for justice, human rights and freedom, peace and understanding.

Christ, the master, calls us to be God-centered, Other-centered people. So we pray that God may re-energize all of us through the Eucharist—the Body and Blood of Christ--to be the “hands and feet and ears and voice” of Jesus in people’s everyday lives, "bread" to one another.