Think about the varieties of bread being eaten in our lives and in the
world today. In Syria all sides are eating the bread of violence and war.
Here in our country, Republicans and Democrats share the bread of negativity,
hostility, and name-calling. Closer to home, many of us eat the bread of having
to be right and get our way. We eat the bread of hurt feelings and resentment.
Sometimes we eat the bread of loneliness, fear, and isolation. There are times
we eat the bread of sorrow or guilt. Other times we eat the bread of power and
control. Sometimes we eat the bread of revenge or one-upmanship. We eat all
kinds of bread. But the bread we eat reveals something about the nature of our
appetites.
But there is an appetite that we may not be explicitly conscious of, but is
nonetheless the most basic and powerful of all. Only God can complete us, only
he can make us happy. That is how we are made. It is a consoling truth that
hunger for God, once it seizes us, does not disappear easily; for that we can
be grateful to God. Indeed, he will continue to intensify this hunger, if only
we respond to it.
In the Gospels people come to Jesus hungry. They want to feed themselves
with bread. Jesus wants to feed them with God. “Do not work for the food that
perishes,” he tells them, “but for the food that endures for eternal life.” The
Good News we celebrate is precisely this: the food that endures is Jesus
himself. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this
bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the
life of the world.” He is the bread that is broken and distributed for the life
of the world. He is the bread that is broken, and yet never divided. He is the
bread that is eaten, and yet never exhausted. He is the bread that consecrates
those who believe in him, and eat him.
Excerpts from Father Dominic's homily for Corpus Christi.
