Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ A   June 26, 2011

Deut 8:2-3, 14b-16a  Ps: 147 1 Cor 10:16-17 John 6:51-58 

In true Jesuit tradition, I would like to share with your three points:

• Food for the Journey
• Food for Companionship
• Food for Life

Intro: No one asked my permission when I was brought into this world. No one will ask my permission before I die. But here I am on a journey from Life to Death and then to Eternal Life/Death. As I journey there will be cross roads and I have to make a choice which path to take. Jesus spoke about the broad and narrow paths in life.

• Matthew 7:13 Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and spacious and broad is the way that leads away to destruction, and many are those who are entering it. 14 But the gate is narrow and the way is straitened and compressed that leads away to life, and few are they who find it.

Food for the Journey : The Israelites in our reading from Deuteronomy make a similar journey. The emphasis of God’s care is shown in two ways: Material Food and words of Encouragement. In the first place, the Lord God feeds them when they cannot manage for themselves. He feeds them when they are hungry. He feeds them when they are too weak to provide for themselves. The second instance of feeding them, is: God feeds them in the wilderness. They might have the energy, they might have the money, but there is not were to get the food. We have seen such situations in the Tsunami in Japan, in the Tornado in Joplin, Miss.

Story: Ha Minh Thanh  tells this story. He was in Japan helping the relief work after the Tsunami in Japan. He saw a nine year old waiting patiently in line for food. He was wearing a pair of shorts and a thin T-shirt. He was hungry and he was shivering.

Thanh covered the boy with his jacket and even gave him his own allotted ration.

The boy took the food and bowed. However he did not eat the food right way. He went to the front of the line and put it where all the food was being distributed.

Thanh was hocked. He asked the boy why he did not eat it. The boy replied, I saw a lot of people more hungry that I am. If I put the food there, all will get food equally. Thanh turned away so that people could not see him cry. A Society that can produce a nine year old with the concept of sacrifice for the greater good, must be a great society, a great people.

As our Communion Song says, “The bread we get we were given to share!”

The second help that God gave the People of Israel was the gift of the Word of God. The phrase that Jesus used to answer the Devil in the wilderness is taken from here. When the Devil told Jesus to turn the stones into bread, Jesus replied with this text from Deuteronomy: “Man does not live by bread alone.” They live on the Word of God. The Word of God is one of encouragement, hope and trust in God’s fidelity.

Food for Companionship:  Our second reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians does not speak of the Bread we eat and the Cup from which we drink. In fact very curiously it uses two of the four Words used in the Consecration. Jesus took, Jesus blessed, Jesus broke, Jesus gave.

The letter to the Corinthians speaks about the Cup that we BLESS and the bread that we BREAK.  The blessings that we have at the end of the Mass, the blessings that people ask for before a journey or surgery is one of protection, of security and strength. But there is another sense of Blessing: It is a gift, a grace, a talent that God entrusts to us to be used for others. The Bread that we break: This signifies the fact that we not only live in a broken world, but we ourselves who are broken by sin, by sickness, by discouragement will get strength from the Bread that was broken for us by the Lord Jesus. Often we look for healing in miracles, in drugs and medication, in surgery. All these are helpful, but perhaps we should start with the Bread that is broken for us. Too often our faith is so weak.

A good friend of mine while we were sitting at a meal in the restaurant and talking about food, asked me point blank, “do you really believe the bread of the Mass is the Body of Christ.”  I emphatically answered Yes I do. Oh, she replied, for me it is only symbolic.  As I thought of it, there is nothing symbolic about the death and the sacrifice of Jesus. It was real, it was for my sake, and for the sake of the rest of us. It was as real as the sacrifice of the nine year old boy waiting in line for food in that little school in Japan.

The bread we have is food for Companionship. The word “Companion” as I have said on other occasions, has the root of  - “com” – with, and “panis” – bread. The food is not for our own sake. It has Eucharistic overtones. It is impregnated with sacrifice. It is focussed on “others”. We have been given this Bread to “proclaim the death of Jesus, until he – and we come again in and to Glory.

Food of Eternal Life:  The bread given on our journey and in companionship with others,  is for Eternal Life. We know how irascible we get when we are hungry. We know how we cannot carry on with our tasks, our chores, our responsibilities when we do not have nourishment.

However, as in the case of the Woman at the Well, in John’s Gospel, the food that we have today, will leave us hungry tomorrow. Like that Samaritan Woman we need food that will never leave us hungry, drink that will never leave us thirsty – so that we do not need to go to the well, to the table, to the market place again and again and again.

Jesus gives us this food for Eternal Life. Sadly when we are in good health physically, when we have things going well for us, we never stop to find Food for Eternal life. For the most part, the people who really appreciate that are the ones who are terminal ill, the ones who know that this sickness, this malady is going to take them away. Ironically, they seem to have no desire for hamburgers and fries, for ice cream and potato chips. Their eyes are fixed on the Food for Eternal life.

Look beyond the bread we eat, see our Saviour and our God.

The fully story of Ha Minh Thanh:

sharing

How are you and your family? These last few days, everything was   in chaos. When I close my eyes, I see dead bodies. When I open my  eyes, I also see dead bodies .                           
Each one of us must work 20 hours a day, yet I wish there were 48 hours in the day, so that we could continue helping and rescuing folks .                                                          
We are without water and electricity, and food rations are near   zero.
We barely manage to move refugees before there are new orders to move them elsewhere.                                   
                                                                
 I am currently in Fukushima , about 25 kilometres away from the nuclear power plant. I have so much to tell you that if I could  write it all down, it would surely turn into a novel about human relationships and behaviours during times of crisis.              
                                                                 
 People here remain calm - their sense of dignity and proper behaviour are very good - so things aren't as bad as they could  be. But given another week, I can't guarantee that things won't   get to a point where we can no longer provide proper protection   and order.                                                       
They are humans after all, and when hunger and thirst override dignity, well, they will do whatever they have to do. The government is trying to provide supplies by air, bringing in food  and medicine, but it's like dropping a little salt into the ocean .                                                           
                                                                 
 Brother, there was a really moving incident. It involves a little Japanese boy who taught an adult like me a lesson on how to behave like a human being .                                       
                                                                
 Last night, I was sent to a little grammar school to help a charity organization distribute food to the refugees. It was a  long line that snaked this way and that and I saw a little boy  around 9 years old. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of   shorts.
It was getting very cold and the boy was at the very end of the   line. I was worried that by the time his turn came there wouldn't be any food left. So I spoke to him. He said he was at school when the earthquake happened. His father worked nearby and was driving to the school. The boy was on the third floor balcony   when he saw the tsunami sweep his father's car away.             
                                                                  
 I asked him about his mother. He said his house is right by the  beach and that his mother and little sister probably didn't make  it. He turned his head and wiped his tears when I asked about his relatives.                                                       
The boy was shivering so I took off my police jacket and put it on him. That's when my bag of food ration fell out. I picked it  up and gave it to him. "When it comes to your turn , they might   run out of food. So here's my portion. I already ate. Why don't  you eat it ?"                                                     
                                                                  
 The boy took my food and bowed. I thought he would eat it right away, but he didn't. He took the bag of food, went up to where the line ended and put it where all the food was waiting to be distributed.                                                     

                I was shocked. I asked him why he didn't eat it and instead added it to the food pile. He answered: "Because I see a lot more people hungrier than I am. If I put it there, then they will distribute the food equally."                                    
 When I heard that I turned away so that people wouldn't see me cry.

A society that can produce a 9-year-old who understands the concept of
sacrifice for the greater good must be a great society, a great people .                              
Well, a few lines to send you and your family my warm wishes. The hours
of my shift have begun again.                              
 Ha Minh Thanh