Fr Marco Lazzaron
oday we celebrate the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus.
The first step is to nourish ourselves with Jesus. Jesus does not come to ask us for things, but He makes himself a gift, He gives himself to the point of giving his Body as food and his Blood as drink. He makes himself food so that we can satisfy our thirst for eternity. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means “city of bread,” and is placed in a manger because he must be eaten. Christ does this with us; he is at our complete disposal so that he becomes part of our life.
There are people who do not approach the Eucharist because they do not feel worthy, but if on the one hand this thought is a beautiful awareness, on the other it speaks of an inability to welcome a gift. When will we ever be worthy of receiving our Lord? Jesus gives himself to us as bread; bread is a clear symbol, it is a fundamental nourishment linked to survival. We can do without many things but not Jesus. His Presence in our life, his Body, his Blood are not optional, but necessary and fundamental to have eternal life!
The second aspect that we take from today’s Gospel is to become food for others in our turn. The crowd followed Jesus, but when evening came the disciples invited him to send them away. We often run away from people’s problems because they require our response and we do not have or do not want to give answers, we would like to delegate this responsibility to others. But Jesus shows us the solution: He wants to use us! We can look for the excuse that we do not have enough for everyone, but Jesus does not ask us for what we do not have but for the little we have. The problem is not having enough to feed the crowd but giving our little, trusting in Jesus.
This is what Cardinal F.X. Nguyen Van Thuan, who spent nine years in solitary confinement, said about the Eucharistic celebration. “When I was arrested, I had to leave immediately, empty-handed. The next day, I was allowed to write to my family to ask for the most necessary things: clothes, toothpaste… I wrote: ‘Please send me some wine, as medicine for stomach ache.’ […] They sent me a small bottle of wine for Mass, labeled ‘medicine for stomach ache,’ and some hosts hidden in a torch to protect against the humidity. […] I will never be able to express my great joy: every day, with three drops of wine and a drop of water in the palm of my hand, I celebrated Mass. This was my altar and this was my cathedral! […] They were the most beautiful Masses of my life.”