They ate, and everyone was fed …
The immodest liturgical holiday invites us all to be more aware of the need for physical food and the great need for spiritual food. Just as man needs physical food to live and work, he also needs spiritual food to experience his faith and relationship with God more here on earth and prepare for an eternal encounter with God in eternity. The Gospel introduces us to Jesus, who teaches the multitudes about the kingdom of God and heals the sick. When evening is given to the apostles, who urge him to disperse the multitude, he expresses his demand for the satiation of this multitude of people. „You give them eat“. Subsequently, Jesus performs a miracle of the multiplication of bread and fish. „Everyone ate and was satisfied.“
What a miraculous multiplication of spiritual bread – the Eucharist, we can all always experience during the celebration of every Holy Mass. Where a piece of bread becomes the Eucharist – the body of Jesus, it is bread for us to persevere in walking on the path to Jesus, so that we do not faint on this path and have life. Jesus offers us his body and blood to eat and be full. After all, he calls us to this when he says: „ If you do not eat the body of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you“. Therefore, this challenge of Jesus and an invitation are crucial. After all, who among us does not want to live and enjoy life? After the end of this earthly life, who among us does not want to live in the glorified Church in heaven? For a Christian, these words of Jesus and the invitation to the Eucharist must be precious. When Jesus spoke these words of his to the Jews, they were horrified by them. They asked: „How can this one give us to eat his body…“ They could not understand what Jesus was offering them. We already know today that he provided us with the Eucharist.
Even today, many people do not want to accept this spiritual dimension of Jesus’ body and blood. Even today, many people reject the Eucharist, and even many humiliate it. Yes, our human mind cannot fully understand this great mystery of the Eucharist, but faith and heart help us accept and understand this gift of Jesus. In one well-known song about the Eucharist from the unified Catholic hymnal, we sing: „My sight and taste would like to deceive me, but my hearing teaches me to have firm faith“. These are excellent and concise words, because my eyes in the Eucharist see only a piece of white bread, and when I receive it, I will also feel only the taste of bread, but faith tells me, this is the Lord Jesus who sacrificed himself for us and me.
This is his body and the blood he gives me so I can eat and be satisfied. Can I even understand and accept this fact? Here comes to mind an excerpt from the book Blazing Fire by Wilhelm Hubermann, a German priest and writer, in which he describes the biography of Pope Saint Pius X., when little Joseph longed to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, but he did not yet have the prescribed age. When meeting the bishop, he presented him with his request that he would like to receive the Eucharist. So the bishop asks him whose question he even knows. What is the Eucharist? Joseph’s answer was very apt. He is the living Lord Jesus in the form of bread. And at the same time, he complements his answer as if with a question for the bishop. Do you know more, Mr. Bishop?
Indeed, we also know about the mystery of the Eucharist only that it is Jesus, but we should make a great effort to love Jesus in the Eucharist, and especially to receive him often
Hello. And Bye.