What does it mean that our Lord and Savior reveals himself as the Bread of Life?
In John 6:51, Jesus declares that he is the Living Bread come down from Heaven. His flesh is real food. His blood real drink. If we eat this bread, gnaw on it, He reveals that we will live forever. Based on this teaching, all the saints have unanimously promoted worthy reception of the Holy Communion; for more than a millennium, churches have practiced exposing the Blessed Sacrament for adoration; and, on the feast of Corpus Christi, Eucharistic processions through public squares have been kept.
What is it about the Bread of Life that evokes such devotion? Bread, according to Psalm 104:15, is for strength of heart. Now, in the natural order of things, bread is not something we earn so much as we are given it by God. The Creator never ceases to give us the strength we need to be faithful to the task of being a human being. That is, He freely imparts the sustenance that a creature, one in His own image and likeness, needs to be the steward of creation and gaurdian of natural life. In a world of thorns and thistles, where work requires sacrificial toil and sweat, Divine Providence blesses us, often with even great abundance, with this earthly blessing to share with one another and to build each other up so that we do not lose hope. If this is all God gave us, it would have been enough. Yet, for the Father, so great is His love for each human heart, this blessing alone did not satisfy His desire to give us even more.
Jesus, in his sacred humanity, understood the immensity of the Father’s love for humanity when He taught us to pray. This is why Jesus commanded us to pray not simply for bread, but to ask for super-substantial bread. In the English translations of the Lord’s Prayer, super-substantial is rendered “daily” but the ancient Fathers of the Church understood the original Greek ἐπιούσιον in this more spiritual sense. For them, this super-substantial bread meant the Eucharist, Jesus Himself. Holy Communion was for them a supreme moment of their Eucharistic faith – the moment when the Eucharistic Lord entered their hearts in tender intimacy to give them strength for the mission that He entrusted to them. In other words, they believed that Christ commanded us to pray for “Bread from Above,” that is, His very self, as our nourishment, because without gnawing on His real presence in our lives, we would not have the strength to be faithful to Him.
This ancient line of reason seems to have been that as Christians live in the world but not of it, they need a sustenance beyond any earthly blessing the Father might bestow. If they were to be a compelling witness to the presence of the Risen Lord in the world, they needed a heavenly blessing, food from heaven, strength from above, nourishment that offered them strength over and above what any other substance might provide for sustenance. They knew that they lived by faith in the Son of God, not their own life, but His Life in them (Gal. 2:20). Without Him, they could do nothing (John 15:5) but they were convinced that, with the Eucharistic Lord as their nourishment, they could do all things because it was Christ Himself who strengthened them (Phil. 4:13). These ancient Christians needed supernatural sustenance because the Son of the Father sent them to live a supernatural life in the world for a supernatural purpose: to bear witness to His victory over sin and death, and to prepare the world for His coming in glory to judge the Living and the Dead.
God has granted us the great task of bearing witness to His love in the world. To help us with this supernatural task, He gives us supernatural food in the Eucharist. The feast of Corpus Christi is about renewing our commitment to show God the gratitude and hospitality that He deserves. To eat this sacred Flesh and drink this Precious Blood requires such reverence and gratitude before the immensity of Divine Love. Such faith demands the recognition of our own unworthiness, renunciation of sin, and the ongoing struggle for conversion away from anything that contradicts the love that we have recieved. Yes, this Eucharistic faith demands evermore humble honesty and sincere integrity before the Lord. Most of all, to receive Jesus worthily and to fully share in His mystery, we must continually lay down our lives for one another in the nitty-gritty daily circumstances of our lives – because the super-substantial strength of heart that we are given is never just for ourselves but always for those that the Lord sends us to, especially those who most need a word of hope.
It is no casual thing to stand before the Fire of Love Himself and to allow Him to be the strength of one’s own heart.
It is no casual thing to stand before the Fire of Love Himself and to allow Him to be the strength of one’s own heart.
Indeed, to consume the Eucharist is to consume Divine Fire, a consuming flame that ignites one’s humanity all the more the deeper its devotion. Yes, a heart on fire is a source of light and warmth in this cold dark world. Yet, those who suffer distress and overwhelming circumstances, they have discovered in their faith all that they need to go on in this inestimable gift. By this super-substantial gift they have found strength to offer their very bodies as a living sacrifice, their spiritual worship. The Eucharistic Lord gives us every reason to believe that a heart that humbly approaches him with this kind of vulnerability will not be denied – but given eternal life.
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This post was originally published on Beginning to Pray and is reprinted here with permission.
Image: Unsplash
