Lunch and Life

Learning to rely on God for everything in the Eucharist

04/17/2024

Jn 6:30-35 The crowd said to Jesus: "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat." So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." So they said to Jesus, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."

Around lunchtime someone at the church office always asks: “What’s for lunch today?” My response is invariably: “Manna from heaven!” That is, someone always brings the priests lunch, or there will be leftovers from dinner the previous night, or I will heat up one of Peggy Brandebura’s Jenny Craig frozen dinners – yum, yum! Or, I pull out one of my literally hundreds of gift cards to local restaurants and pick up a sandwich or salad or hamburger. But the point is that I try to have a total reliance on divine providence to provide lunch for me every day.

But my further and deeper prayer is that this attitude of trust really seeps into every crack and crevice of my life so that I rely on God, not just for lunch but for everything – my food, my clothing, my shelter, my friends, my health, my rest, my peace, etc. In other words, the manna is a symbol for my whole life, and just like I do not worry about where lunch is coming from, so I try not to worry about where life is coming from either. Put simply: lunch and life all come from God.

In the gospel today, Jesus begins in earnest his Bread of Life Discourse in John 6. The people quote Exodus 16 saying, “He (meaning Moses) gave them bread from heaven to eat.” But Jesus corrects their understanding by adding: “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven…I am the bread of life.” That is, the people are just thinking about lunch, like our church office staff does every day.

But Jesus wants to expand and elevate their thinking so that they see that lunch is really a symbol for their whole life. And the bread he will give them – by which he means himself in the Eucharist – will be real life, that is, eternal life. In other words, while Moses’ manna will help you live on earth, Jesus’ Manna (the Eucharist) will help you live for eternity.

My friends, how do you look at the Eucharist, and coming to Mass? Everyone who comes here comes for different reasons, even priests do! Some people see Mass as a mere obligation. If I don’t go to Mass on Sunday I commit a mortal sin. So, I better go but I only see Mass as a necessary interruption to all the more pleasant things I would rather do on Sunday. Our most popular Mass on Sunday is 7:30 a.m. which is early and has no music. Short and sweet. We check the Sunday Mass box and get on with our day.

Other people come to Mass because they need something. They come to ask God for a special intention: the healing of a loved one who has cancer, help with a spouse who drinks too much, prayers for children and grandchildren to go to church again. The petition list is long and as diverse as the congregation that walks through the church doors.

But there is a third group of people who come to Mass for an utterly unique and other-worldly reason, namely, they see that little white Wafer not as lunch but as life. These people don’t just come to Sunday Mass to check a box. They don’t come merely to ask for some petition. They come because they have glimpsed that Mass is not an interruption to their day, but rather in a spiritual sense, the Mass is the highlight of their day and everything else is of far less importance. Or better, everything finds its true meaning and measure in light of the Eucharist.

Bishop Robert Barron expressed it eloquently describing the Manna of Exodus 16: “In this strange substance, we sense something of signal importance – namely, that even as God sustains his people physically, his ultimate purpose is to sustain them spiritually. Coming ‘from heaven,’ the manna is an evocation of the higher, supernatural life to which he is summoning his people” (The Great Story of Israel, 52). Changing metaphors: the Mass is the mountaintop while the rest of the day is down in the valley. That is how the saints see the Mass, and one day, that is how we will all see the Mass.

Praised be Jesus Christ!