“I am the living bread come down from heaven, says the Lord; whoever eats this bread will live forever.” These words summarize amazing revolution brought about by Christianity… God takes human nature and then, as if He, the Creator and Giver of all has not diminished himself enough, He becomes the basic, least spectacular food – the bread.
This God- Bread is a food of immortality. In this Bread He lives for us and also builds us up – strengthening us for both this life and also for that which is to come.
For ages and ages humans have been dreaming about immortality. The very first known myth, that of a Mesopotamian king Gilgamesh, talks about the hero who leaves his land and kingdom and conquers countless obstacles in hope of discovering the secret of perpetual life. Many, many others followed – all permeated with one hope – that they would not die. This “life forever” was not understood as shared with God. It completely focused on “not dying” because dying meant going into a dark, senseless place of no hope and no justice. You went into this gloomy Hades, The Pit and it was the same place for the evil and the good, for the merciless rich man and the humble, suffering Lazarus.
Only the distant gods did not die – people believed – and they looked down at the mortals with disdain.
Fot. flickr.com/The Holy Eucharist
Christian God, present in the white, defenseless wafer, never despises us, never rejects us. We may do horrible things to ourselves, others and Him, too. He loves – no matter what. He knows that apart from immortality, the other human craving, sometimes hidden, at other times almost screaming out and dissolving in tears – has always been that for perpetual love. We shrink and wither without love. If we lose someone’s love, we disintegrate
When we sin and forget Him, when we recognize Him no longer – as if he were a foreigner on the street – when we flee from Him as far as the dark storm of our sins can take us, He suffers. We must remember that since He accepted human nature He shares also our emotions.
It may sound as oversimplification but is it?
If you have ever been separated by some family circumstances from a child, or a grandchild that you used to be very close to – and when you meet them after a few years and they look at you as if you were a stranger – well, this is what Jesus feels in similar circumstances..
You still remember how you carried that child, the small body warm and trustful in your arms, how you sat with him and played (you still have that small while teddy bear on your shelf), how you two sat by the kitchen table and drew pictures, how beautiful she was in the little wreath made of wildflowers. Your love has etched every move, every word of this child in your memory – forever. And now you are rejected. You simply are no longer, as good as killed.
There is no doubt that Jesus – the God – remembers everything with His love – each of our smiles, attempts at speaking to Him, our first words and songs, our reconciliations with others and with Him. When, seduced by the world, we look at Him as if he were a stranger, he suffers. When we come back – he is full of joy.
So I suppose that we can say that when we receive with love the Holy Communion, when we adore Jesus in the Eucharist, we not only take from Him, we also give Him joy. No matter how sinful, we are with Him, beside Him, at least trying to hold on to His hand…