Eucharist, The Food for the Spiritually Hungry

They say, “You are what you eat”. It is true in some sense. Today the Catholic Church celebrates Corpus Christi or “The Body of Christ”.

How fitting we celebrate this prominent feast as we grasp the sad news of 70% percent of Catholics don’t accept Jesus truly present in the Eucharist. They have forgotten that Jesus is the one who satisfies our heart’s desires.

We are now amid a Eucharistic Revival that will go on until 2025. Yet, our mission to be a living monstrance to others will continue.

The Eucharist, comes from the Greek “Eucharista”, meaning thanksgiving. Every time we attend Mass, we take part in the celebration of the first Thanksgiving on the night before Jesus was to be crucified. He gave us this sacrament to soon-to-be ordained men of our Holy and Catholic Church. He asked them to do it in memory of him.

Through the Eucharist, we take part in the feast of feasts.

Through the Eucharist, our hungry hearts are nourished by the finest wheat.

Through the Eucharist, we learn of the greatest love story ever told.

For Catholics, the Eucharist is the food that satisfies our hungry desires for heaven. Like the athlete that follows a strict diet in their sport, the Eucharist helps strengthen our spiritual needs.

As thousands of Catholics prepare to take part in Eucharistic processions worldwide, we must boldly proclaim, as St. John Paul the Great reminds us, the sacrifice “of the salvation of the whole world.” We even carry a monstrance ourselves after we receive Jesus at Mass faithfully. We are tasked in the words of St. Teresa of Avila to be the "hands and feet" of the monstrance inside of us to share with those who need it. 

In his letter to his son, JRR Tolkien wrote, “Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament … There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth.”

As we boldly take the Eucharist to the streets of our communities or cities, let it illuminate the darkness that surrounds it and let our desires for the sacrament make us love Jesus more and more.