By Kimberly Andrich

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever…” ~ John 6:51

I can’t tell you how many times, stressed and overwhelmed, I’ve reached for chocolate when what I really wanted was peace. I’ve looked for something that would get me through the next few minutes when what I longed for was sustenance.

Living Bread

In today’s Gospel, the crowd had just been fed with loaves and fish. They had seen a sign from Heaven and had filled themselves with miraculous food, akin to the manna given their ancestors in the desert. They did not realize that manna was simply a foretaste of the food with which their Father truly wanted to feed them. Manna was a perishable food that would give life for a day. But Jesus was offering an imperishable, everlasting food – one that gives life and sustenance to the soul, not just nourishment to the body.

Jesus, our Savior, is offering Himself to humanity. The Word made flesh wants to enter the soul of each person and breathe life into us. Indeed, to live within us and unite Himself with us.

Life and Unity

The Eucharist is that gift of life and unity. Our Lord gives Himself to us perpetually from the sacrifice He made on Calvary, multiplying His Body to feed the multitudes.

Unity with Christ is life. Jesus told those gathered around Him, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in Him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (Jn 6:56-57). Through the Eucharist, Jesus comes to us and remains with us and even within us. As the Father and Christ are one in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are invited into that unity and into the life of the Trinity through our receiving Christ into our bodies.

In the same Gospel, John proclaims of Jesus, the Word, “All things were made through him…. In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (Jn 1:3-4). He whom we receive in the Eucharist is the same Word of God, the Incarnate Son. The life given to us when we were created was given through the same Christ who offers us His Flesh and Blood so that we may receive more abundant life in Him.

Receive and Respond

The Eucharist is more than Jesus’ presence with us. It is self-gift, sacrifice, and redemption. It is unity, transformation, and re-creation. It is life for our souls. To receive Jesus in that way is to live in Him and Him in us.

It is not enough to take Him into our bodies. We also need to embrace Him, to welcome Him. To offer ourselves back to Him as His home so as to be reconstructed and renewed, transformed further into His Image.

What a gift it is to receive Jesus in the flesh and to be nourished by Him! To receive from Him life in abundance through mutual self-gift and unity with Him!

Prayer

Oh, Jesus, You give us Your Body and Blood – Your very self – to nourish us and bring us to deeper life in You. I am unworthy to receive You into my own body, yet that is what You invite me to do. Lord, I offer myself back to You that You may live in me and further transform me to be like You and to be the person I was created, through You, to be.

Call to Action

The next time you are in Mass, reflect on the wondrous gift Jesus gives you in the Eucharist. Ask His help in opening your heart more fully to Him and the life He desires to pour into your soul, then receive in reverence and thanksgiving.

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