EUCHARIST AND MATERIAL FOOD
Introduction: “Eucharist”
itself means Thanksgiving. There couldn’t be a better way of thanking God than
by celebrating the Eucharist. Every Mass is a thanksgiving Mass. No sacrament
contributes more to our salvation than this, for it purges away our sins,
increases our virtues, and is the pledge of eternal life. The Most Holy
Eucharist is the real, substantial and personal presence of Jesus Christ under
the symbol of food and as Head of the community.
Let
us begin the Eucharistic Lord’s celebration with profound sorrow for our sins
and failures.
The Homily: Material food also has a
spiritual dimension. Offering each other food is an important gesture of
hospitality. It recognizes that feeding people is more than satisfying their
physical need. Food becomes a symbol for welcome, generosity, protection,
kindness, equality and sharing. And a special emphasis on showing hospitality
to strangers makes it clear that food and hospitality must be offered without
discrimination. Food does not merely hold a calorific value but also has a
moral weight, an ethical energy.
Listen to
the experience of a relief worker for Kurdish refugees along the Turkish
border. “Hundreds of thousands of people had fled their homes in Northern Iraq
and were now living in terrible conditions in cold mountain camps. Everyday
people were dying because there was not enough food. On my first visit to a
camp, one old man greeted me and invited me into his small shelter, a sheet of
plastic stretched between the branches of a tree. Inside were huddled his three
wives and his eleven children. It was very cold and some of the children were
ill. We sat down and he offered me a cup of tea. These people had nothing
except this tea, and their only water source was the snow, one hour’s walk
away. But still they offered it to me, insisting that I share a cup with them.
In this terrible refugee camp where food should have been values more than ever
for its nutritional content alone, people still used it to embody other moral
values. Here it was the values of equality and dignity. This man who now had
nothing, wanted to show me that, despite his suffering, he was still human,
still a moral being. He was still that. The message in that cup of tea came
through loud and clear. It helped see him as a person, to recognize him and not
pass him over as yet another refugee statistic. Drinking our tea we sat
together. He talked about the crisis and I
listened.”
Who
is your
neighbour? Is it anybody in need? Is it
someone you find on your path of life? Or is it someone on whose path you find
yourself and discover who you are? The New Testament is full of stories about
food. Jesus uses food as a metaphor for many of his sayings. He often is found
eating with people who offer him hospitality. And finally when his inhospitable
enemies are baying for his blood, Jesus proves to be the most hospitable host
by giving himself to his friends in the Eucharist. In the bread and wine of the
Eucharist the friends of Jesus hope to get a glimpse of a new life, a risen
life. We take part in a mystery we cannot understand fully, but which can at
least be tasted. The Eucharist is a small sample of the heavenly feast we look
forward to. A crumb falling from the table of God. We eat the bread when it
becomes for us a mysterious spiritual food which holds great meaning and
embodies the strange story of our faith.
The
story of the man in the prison cell breaking bread and giving it to his wife
and children saying, “Take and eat, this is the Body of God.” I believe that
when said that the stale bread turned warm, fresh and fragrant with the
presence of Jesus, and his wife and children parted from him with strength for
the future.
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