Daily Reflection Thursday of the Third Week in Easter

One September we used our foolish timeshare points to enjoy a long weekend in the Poconos. Sunday had us celebrating Mass in a micro-tiny parish with an itinerant priest -- small enough that yes, everyone seemed to know each other's names (and probably business, if truth be told!), and small enough to have a Eucharistic Bread-baking ministry. Two things I remember from that liturgy: how sweet was the body of Christ. Molasses and honey and a dark, chewy goodness that popped on the tongue. And, too, how the round loaf held aloft at the Consecration broke along jaggedly lines, with such reverent care taken to honor the inevitable few crumbs that fell on the altar. 

Christ truly present in the crumbs and cracks of life.... Perhaps this is one insight from the melding of the "I am the bread of life" proclamations we read in the Gospel of John this week with the Eastertide appearances of the embodied Risen Jesus post-resurrection that we will continue to celebrate until the Ascension -- Christ with the validity of his appearances not as ghost but anchored in the breaking of bread and markers of the wounds in his side, his hands, his feet. 

I remember so well those first few participations in the Eucharist after I became a Catholic -- real presence entering my body, healing the wounds of a bitter disappointment in my own life. Jesus calls us to come to him with our wounds of life -- disappointments, betrayals, dashed hopes, illnesses and worry and fatigue. Our deepest hungers will be satisfied with the gifts of precious wheat. 

There is an interesting pairing in the Lectionary today. Philip encounters the Ethiopian court official reading a passage from the one of the Suffering Servant portraits in Isaiah. The silent, slaughtered lamb, cut down in life, for whom there will be no descendants. Jesus is that lamb, teaches Philip, but the end of the Isaiah prophecy is not fulfilled. We are the descendants, the Christ now fully alive in us and in the community of believers.

On the night of the Last Supper, Jesus declared, "Take, eat, this is my body, broken for you." This is the body that had just knelt in the posture of humble servant, who had just washed and dried. "Do this in remembrance of me." May we pledge to do with our bodies the healing of the suffering and brokenness of many. 

Bread for the world: a world of hunger. Wine for all peoples; people who thirst. May we who eat be bread for others. May we who drink pour out our love. ~Refrain from Bread for the World, composed by Bernadette Farrell