What had started as a pretty good week took a turn for the worse on Thursday, when the father of one of my closest friends passed away. Then on Friday, I learned that the lovely daughter of another close friend was having a very hard time with chemotherapy.
And yesterday, one of my younger cousins died suddenly.
I don’t want to be dramatic—when you have a large family and many friends, sad events pile up sometimes. I’m not feeling hopeless like the prophet Elijah in our first reading. But, still, where do we go when life seems to pile on?
Some of us find the answer in the kitchen, with so-called comfort food. With a favourite meal or junk food, we can distract ourselves with the pleasures of eating.
The problem is that a couple of hours later you’re hungry again, and if you keep it up you’ve added unhealthy pounds.
The Word of God this morning offers another answer: the Bread of Life. A heavenly bread that comforts, consoles, and, most importantly, strengthens us to carry on.
There are many ways of coping when misfortune or even tragedy strikes us, from spending time with a friend who listens, to seeing a counselor or other professional. But we should start by bringing our problems and losses with us to Mass.
Every Mass begins with a penitential rite, in which we acknowledge our sins before God and one another. During the Offertory procession, we bring up bread and wine, symbols of God’s earthly gifts to us that will be transformed into heavenly food. But I think that we also need to be intentional about bringing our sorrows and sadness to the altar.
There are many moments for this. If we can arrive a bit early, we have some time to take stock and be touched by an angel, so to speak, as Elijah was. We can hear the divine invitation to receive food for the journey, at least for the week ahead.
The same is true, of course, during the general intercessions or prayers of the faithful. We pray at that time for many needs, but there is enough to time add our own—not just as intentions, but as something we are uniting to our participation in the Mass.
The Eucharistic Prayer itself has many moments when we can ask for strength. The first Eucharistic Prayer, which we don’t do that often, says we offer the sacrifice of praise for ourselves and all who are dear to us; the second, which we use this morning, uses words from today’s Gospel, offering to the Lord “the bread of life” as our sacrifice of praise and petition.
And each of the Eucharistic Prayers remembers those who have died.
When the priest says the words of consecration, and bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, our sufferings are united to Christ’s sufferings.
So far, I haven’t mentioned receiving Holy Communion, when we actually eat the Bread of Life. I want to take a short but deep detour first. In the first volume of his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Emeritus Benedict reminds us that Christ’s words about his flesh are not only about receiving the Eucharist.
He says, “Above all [his words] point to what underlies the Eucharist: the sacrifice of Jesus” who “pours himself out, and gives himself to us.”
On the one hand, Pope Benedict writes, in the Eucharist God gives us “the manna that humanity is waiting for, the true ‘bread of heaven’—the nourishment we can most deeply live upon as human beings.”
At the same time, the Eucharist is an unceasing encounter with God… “for us this food must become an opening out of our existence, a passing through the Cross, and an anticipation of the new life in God and with God.”
For many months, we live streamed Mass. Some, especially those who can’t get out of their homes, were very disappointed when we stopped. But in fact, Mass is still being live streamed. This saving sacrifice is not contained by the walls of our parish church.
As the Pope Emeritus writes, the flesh of Jesus is not only life for our souls but life for the whole world. Our love for Jesus in the Eucharist, in receiving Holy Communion, in adoration, must be connected to his Cross and the transformation it brings about.
This Mass can reach the hearts and homes of our suffering loved ones, and make present to them, right where they are, the love of Christ and his promise of life forever.
As we ourselves receive Jesus, the Bread of Life, let’s pray that the Father who sent him draws all the world, and especially those for whom we pray, into his divine embrace.
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