“Remember, how for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journey in the desert,… He let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna,…in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” These words, taken from today’s first reading, take on particular significance for us today as those of you here in church return to receiving our Lord in Holy Communion after a fast of more than two months! What an affliction it was to hunger for the Lord and what a joy it has brought you to receive the Eucharist once again. It has also been such a gift to return to church, to be able to join with your fellow believers who love the Lord as you do. Those of you who are joining us remotely are still hungering, I’m sure, and I look forward to the time when you can join us in person.
From the first moment of our lives, we have some basic needs: daily physical and spiritual nourishment, direction in our lives and a loving community that believes in us and supports us. Right now, we could use clear direction. We all feel lost, wandering in the desert without clear direction as everyone – even the experts – struggle to know the best path to follow to escape the scourge of this coronavirus. But, as a community of believers, we can turn to our Lord for spiritual direction. When our Lord, Jesus, started his public ministry, his first gift to his followers was to gather around him a community, whom he loved. His disciples lived with him day and night. And, each day, they grew in their understanding of who he really was and who they were called to be. He inspired them and gave them direction in their lives, despite their poverty and oppression. And, as he nourished them with every word that he spoke, the people flocked to hear what he had to say and receive what he had to offer. Here, we see the first community of believers in the sacred presence of God. Most of them didn’t recognize who he really was – God in the flesh – but they were eager to receive the gifts he offered: his life-giving word and a reason for hope. They were especially excited when he offered them something to eat. All four gospels recount his feeding thousands of his followers. Of course, we know that these events were intended to prepare them for His crowning gift to them when he gave them himself at the Last Supper. In the bread and wine that became his body and blood at that Passover Meal that we call the Last Supper, Jesus offered them a sacred and sacrificial meal, a sacramental gift that would nourish his followers and bind his Church together into a loving community down through the ages; that’s what we celebrate every time we gather around our Lord’s Table. Present in these sacred signs – both in his word and in the bread and wine – the Lord would preserve and nourish his Church through the ages.
His followers, whom he now called his friends – indeed his brothers and sisters – would become the living presence of God in the world, nourished by his own body and blood, given direction by his teachings and drawn into a loving communion with him and one another.
That’s what we celebrate even today, every time we gather in the presence of the Lord, hear his saving word and receive his nourishing Body and Blood. We become the body of Christ, God’s community of believers.
St. Paul, in our second reading today, tells us clearly that the bread we break is “a participation in the body of Christ.” He tells us that the cup we share is “a participation in the blood of Christ.” Think of it: When we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ, we become one with God. We are then able to say with St. Paul, “I live now, not I, but Christ who lives in me.”
The Eucharist offers us these three gifts: the spiritual nourishment we need to grow, direction in our lives and the community of faith that supports us in all of our needs. How blessed we are.
Last week, we celebrated the feast of the Holy Trinity, recalling that God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, invites us to join in their Holy Communion. The Eucharist nourishes us on our journey to heaven and anticipates our sharing in the heavenly banquet.
Today, we celebrate that Eucharistic meal that gives us the strength to walk through the vast and terrible desert that often is our life. Like the ancient Israelites, we certainly feel as if we’re wandering in a desert today, don’t we, as we struggle to navigate the challenges that the coronavirus is forcing us all to face. On top of that, the unrest that so many communities are facing as a result of George Floyd’s death adds even more challenges.
In all of this, I invite you to turn to our Lord to be nourished by his life-giving body and blood as well as his teachings which guide us all as we journey through this desert. Remember, as with the ancient Israelites, so today, God tests us to find out whether or not it is our intention to keep his commandments. And, his commandments are just two: to love him above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
It’s important to realize that, as our Lord offered himself to us at the Last Supper, he offered himself to his heavenly Father for us on the cross. Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, we are a sinful people. As Cain slew Abel, so we find ourselves at odds with one another throughout the ages. Only in Jesus do we find the way to reconciliation and lasting peace. All of the demonstrations, all of the new legislation will ultimately fail if we don’t come before the Lord and allow his Spirit to raise us beyond our sinfulness to union with God and one another.
As we hear our Lord’s sacred word and prepare to receive our Lord for just the first or second time in months in Holy Communion, let us unite ourselves ever closer to our heavenly Father and pledge to follow the example of his Son, who gave his life for us and offered himself to us for our nourishment on the journey back to the Father. For, as we hear in today’s second reading, “we, though many, are one body.” And, we are assured in today’s Gospel that “whoever eats this bread will live forever.”