Jesus’ audience grumbled about Him because He had told them, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” Jesus responded to their grumbling in two ways. Firstly, He pointed them to His Father’s open invitation to all humanity in every time and place, “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from Him comes to me.” Secondly, He provided the true life-giving bread in His own flesh, “The bread that I will give is may flesh for the life of the world.”
Jesus invites all and provides all that we need for communion with God. He does not force anyone and He does not exclude anyone. We are all invited to accept His invitation by His gift of faith before we can enjoy the beautiful things that He provides for us, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise Him on the last day.”(Jn 6:41, 44, 46, 51)
The prophet Elijah had just won a major public show-down with four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, proving to them that the God of Israel was the true God. He was now on the run from the vengeful and murderous Jezebel. He is depressed and discouraged to the point of praying for death, “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” He seems to have forgotten the God who gave him victory over his foes a short time earlier.
God responded to him by continuously inviting and teaching him about the mysterious food that He was providing for him in the desert, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you.” He believes God’s words to him, eats the food in faith, and then experiences the power of what God has provided for his journey to God’s presence, “Strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.”(1Kgs 19:4,7,8)
We learn something from Elijah’s experience. Our entire life on this earth is a journey back to God along a desert-like pathway. There are some moments when we sense the power of God in our lives, making us victorious over our adversities and filling us with great zeal in His service and hope for the future. Then there are moments when we feel abandoned by God and get discouraged and depressed because of our past failures and present challenges. We then forget the past victories and feel like quitting in our life of faithful service.
That is why we need the Eucharist on our earthly journey home. Jesus, our Eucharistic Lord, lovingly invites us to Himself and provides for us all that we need for our journey back to God. He knows how we can be mummering like His Jewish audience or depressed and discouraged like the once-fiery Elijah. He invites every single one of us, without exception, no matter our holiness or sinfulness, our virtues or our vices, our failures or accomplishments, etc. He wants to bestow on us graces that we need for our journey back to Him. But He will never force us or move us by threats against our will!
But we must not only respond to His invitation and enjoy what He provides for us. We do not and must not try to travel alone on this journey to God. Receiving the Eucharist also entails that we must also be Eucharist for others i.e., without forcing or threatening them, we too must invite others into our lives and provide for them what they need from us for their own journey to God.
We actually “grieve the Holy Spirit” when we exclude people from our lives and deny them what they need to be strengthened on their spiritual journey. The Spirt is grieved when we actually offer things that do not help others on their journey to God, “All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice.” On the other hand, we must be “imitators of God, as His beloved children.” Like God, we too invite others and provide for them only what spurs them on towards God, “And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.”(Eph 4:30-5:2)
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, are we aware that receiving the Eucharist demands that we too be Eucharist to others? This means that the Church and her members must make present today to all persons the same open invitation that we have experienced in the Eucharist. We cannot be picking and choosing whom we invite into the communion of the Church. Likewise, there is no room for any form of threatening or forcing someone against their conscience and free will.
The Church is not a place where we force people to take Covid vaccines against their conscience. The Church is not a place where we force people to receive Holy Communion in their hands while standing. The Church is not a place where we force people to attend only the Novus Ordo Mass. The Church of Christ remains a place of free, open, and loving invitation and not a place of enforcing mandates or issuing threats.
The Church is also a place where we provide what is needed to help others on their way to God. The Church makes present the saving truths of Christ and His saving grace through the sacraments. It is not a place where lies are welcomed and fostered. The Church is a place where people can see good examples of Christian living and not the scandalous activities of the faithful and their clergy. The Church is a place of self-sacrificing love that counteracts the self-indulgence of our world. It is a place where people can find that hope that is elusive in our world. It is place where we hear the encouraging and challenging words of the Gospel that call us to repentance and holiness, and not lies that only condemn and damn us.
We will do well to beg Mama Mary to help us to receive Jesus with the same disposition that she did at the Annunciation. Having lovingly received the person of Jesus Christ at the moment of her Annunciation, she did not just become a living monstrance bearing Jesus within her but she also became Eucharist to others, inviting her cousin Elizabeth into her life and giving her the selfless service that she needed.
Let us always receive Jesus, our Eucharistic Lord, through Mary and with Mary. We will thus receive all that we need for our journey back to Him and also become Eucharist to others, ready and willing to invite all and provide all that they need from us for their own journey back to God.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
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