One of the great joys of being in this parish is the many opportunity to be around families, especially our young families with children. Our parish is blessed with so many good families. Not perfect families but definitely good families. As one of your priests, I have gotten to know many of you and I know how hard you parents work to care for your children. You try to keep them clean and feed them well. You protect their health, not just caring for them when they are sick, but preventing sickness by taking them to the doctor for check-ups, shots, the dentist for their teeth, to name a few. You help them with their school work. You help them learn to make their way in the world especially in making good relationships with others. You want them to grow to be good, healthy people all the way around. Being a good, involved parent is a full time job, without a doubt. But being a good parent is more than just doing things. Being a good parent also means being present to your kids and taking time to watch what they are doing and observe. Now I don’t have to tell you this: children are entertaining to watch because nearly everything they do is heartfelt and genuine.
One of the most entertaining things that kids do, especially young ones, is eat. For a child, eating is a total body experience. For example, the young child doesn’t just taste ice scream, he smells it, feels it, wears it and LOVES it! The same is true when a child dislikes his food. He makes faces, he is totally repulsed by its presence and may even cry or throw the offensive food across the room. There is something about watching a child happily eat that warms our hearts, especially when we cook the meal or provide the food.
That is, as long as they DO eat. One of the most maddening things to see is a child that refuses to eat or at least try certain types of food. I was never a picky eater but some of my siblings were and, to this day, the picky eater or the child who refuses to eat, well, that is something that drives me up a wall. It just seems so irrational! I want to say: “there is no reason to cry about the vegetables on your tray!” “It won’t hurt you to take a little bite!” These words don’t usually make a difference unless there is some sort of bribe involved. In any case, the child who refuses to eat their food can be frustrating because they don’t realize that what they are being offered is for their own good. And they have no idea of the sacrifice and time that went into getting and fixing the meal itself. I am sure that most of the families here have at least one child who gives them a run for their money at the table. But you don’t give up. The child has to eat and eat the proper food.
Now, if feeding and watching our loved ones eat brings us joy and satisfaction, how much more must it be cherished by God, our Heavenly Father. He is the one that provides everything that we use, from the rain and the sun, to the soil and the intelligence that has learned how to cultivate the earth and use its resources. I am sure it must warm His heart as he sees us enjoying the food and other good things He provides.
But that is not the only food that God gives us! Even more important than the daily nourishment our bodies consume is the perfect meal that is the Eucharist. For this food He offers us is the very Body and Blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is the Bread come down from heaven, which provides eternal life when received worthily. How much happiness God must experience when he sees us entering into his heavenly feast with great attention and zeal! How he must long for us to participate with our whole heart, soul, and body! When we eat His Body and Drink His Blood in a worthy and reverent way, we show him that we appreciate his gift and the sacrifice that he endured to provide it for us.
I am also sure He is saddened when we refuse to eat or carelessly receive the Great Meal He has prepared from the beginning of time. When we refuse to eat, or only sometimes come to Church to receive His Food, the Lord must feel like the parents who are upset that their children refuse to take the nourishment that they have provided with love and sacrifice. The Lord paid dearly for the Food He gives us. He paid for that food with His own life. How must He feel when we refuse to eat or fail to receive the eucharist with the proper reverence or while in serious sin?
It is good for us to reflect on our disposition towards the Eucharist as we near the end of the Bread of life discourse which has continued over the last month. This week’s Gospel reading gets right to the heart of the Eucharistic message: Jesus says, “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood you will not have life within you.” When we receive communion properly, we receive the Lord’s life within us.
There are some people who reduce this sacrament to a meal of fellowship. There are some who equate the Eucharist in the Catholic Church with meals of fellowship in non-Catholic churches. These actions are not the same. For us, the Eucharist is Jesus Christ himself. The Sacrament we receive is so much more than a sharing of fellowship. It is total union with Christ, whom we take within ourselves in sacramental form. Some people simplify this mystery into a reception of Blessed Bread. The bread is not just blessed. It is Christ. The Eucharist is Jesus dying for us, sacrificing himself for us, and calling us to go out and perform the same sacrifice for others. This is why the Church gives us five weeks to reflect on the Bread of Life Discourse of St. John’s Gospel. She wants us to come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the gift that we routinely receive every time we come to communion.
God our Father, is the perfect father, and he knows that his children need to eat, and they need to eat well. He provides us with the Body and Blood of His Son, at each and every Mass so that we can have all we need and more, to grow in his life and love. We need to take the food our Heavenly Father provides us without being picky or stubborn. May we receive this gift with gratitude, never taking it for granted, never receiving it unworthily. Let us heed the advice in our psalm today and “taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”
