The most important food of all

Food is indeed a very important element of human life. If we go without food for a number of days, we die. If we don't have the proper nutrients from food, we suffer malnutrition, stunted growth, and diseases. If we take too much tasty fats, we become "high risk" for heart attack. If we take too much delicious sweets, we die of diabetes. We get gouts and arthritis from too much uric acid.

On the other hand, better nutrition makes today's children taller and chubbier than their parents. And women can have a sexier shape with the right kind of diet and drink.

"We are what we eat" as the saying goes.

All through the history of mankind, people have been searching for the kind of food and drink that will bring them long life and youth. There was a craze about ginseng and pollen-B, and Noni Juice, because they are supposed to bring long life and youth.

In today's Gospel Jesus offers us the most important food of all, the food that will bring us to everlasting life - his own body and blood. "The person who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal." Jesus, the Son of Man, the Messiah, the Christ, is talking about the food and drink necessary to share in his risen life.

The Word has become flesh, was broken for us in his passion and death, and has risen from the dead. We are invited to be in sacramental union with the risen Christ. The glorified body of the risen Christ is truly present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

The Lord feeds us with the best of food. We are invited to be what we eat. However, unlike the material food we eat, which after being digested and assimilated becomes part of us, when we receive the risen Lord, we become part of Him.

And Jesus reminds us that we must be prepared to grow spiritually if we are to benefit from the food and drink he is offering us. We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord, in his teaching, his commands of love and service of God and neighbor.

If we are to benefit from this Body and Blood of Jesus, we must try to live by his commands, and in turn the Eucharistic banquet will nourish and strengthen us to live his life in us. The fruit or effect of the Eucharist will be an increase of love and service of God and neighbor, especially in the concern and care for the people around us, not only for the members of our immediate family, but especially for the people under our care, like students, employees and house-helps, and the needy.

Does the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ help me to understand them and their situation better? Does the risen life of Christ in me help me to treat them with greater sympathy, compassion and respect?

This brings us to the question of why do we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ? We have been receiving the Body and Blood of Christ practically every Sunday, or even every day.

Perhaps we have taken the Holy Eucharist for granted precisely because Jesus made it so easy for us to receive him. Psychologists tell us that if we pay close attention to every sound we hear or every color we see, we would literally go crazy. To protect ourselves from insanity, we habituate these sounds and colors. Or in simpler language, we "desensitize" ourselves - block them out of our consciousness.

For example, if we live on a street where we are constantly bombarded by the noise of jeepney and tricycle traffic, we may get disturbed at first. But, after a few months, as we get de-sensitized, the noise stops bothering us as we go about our activities.

The negative side of it is that we tend to desensitize everything after a while - sunsets, starry nights, flowers, friends, mother, father, even the Body and Blood of Christ. We lose our appreciation for them. We take them for granted. We do not always appreciate the rich diet Jesus has prescribed for us.

Sometimes we miss a meal and sometimes we are not attentive enough to eat everything on our plate. Like a child, we are easily distracted. We do not absorb the full benefit of the bread of life or the cup of salvation. We miss the point that full participation in the Eucharist is the high point of our life in Christ. In the words of St. Paul: "Is not the bread we break sharing in the body of Christ?"

Like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. In the bread we break together, we celebrate not only that Christ was willing to be broken for us, but also that we are willing to be broken so that we might be in communion with him in his self-sacrificing love.

Without being conspicuous, this willingness to be broken for others is the disposition required to fully participate in the Eucharist. Corpus Christi invites us to ask ourselves -What does Holy Communion mean to us? Do we still appreciate it as much as we did when we received it for the very first time? How can we deepen our personal appreciation, to get excited again about this precious gift of Jesus to us?

One way is to try meditating on the Body of Christ as though we were discovering it for the very first time. In closing, I would like to make two suggestions: First, in the week ahead, let's add a prayer of thanksgiving to our regular prayer for Christ's gift of his body to us. Second, as we walk down the aisle later on in this Mass to receive the Body of Christ, let us focus our thoughts, in a special way, on who it is we are to receive when the Eucharistic Minister holds before us the sacred host and says, "The Body of Christ."

You will receive the living Body of Christ. You will receive the same Christ Who was born in Bethlehem. You will receive the same Christ Who died on the cross for us. You will receive the same Christ Who rose from the dead.

When we think about this, it's so incredible that it's hard to imagine. Yet we know by faith that it's true! Only a loving God could have given us such an unimaginable gift!