The True Banquet

The True Banquet

This Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, otherwise known as the Feast of Corpus Christi. This feast calls us to reflect on the Eucharist, Christ’s gift of His own true presence.

This gift is a mystery, and a great one at that. Understanding the idea that what looks like bread and wine is actually God is not exactly easy.

Yet while I’m not close to understanding this, the hardest part for me is unpacking what the point of the Eucharist actually is. For as often as I go to Mass and for as much as I’ve been catechized that the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life,” I still often find myself wondering how it’s supposed to affect my life.

I would hazard a guess that there are other people who have felt this way. So I find it fitting that the Church has given us a Gospel reading for this Sunday that eases us in with something with which we’re all familiar.

Food.

I don’t think anyone would dispute the idea that food is pretty great. If for some reason you do, please see this list of “18 Microwave Snacks You Can Cook in a Mug.”

Now that we’re on the same page, we can look at the Gospel.

In Luke 9:11B-17, we find Jesus before a crowd of five thousand people who need to eat, and all that’s around is five loaves of bread and two fish. Not exactly a lot. Yet after blessing this food, Jesus multiplies it such that it feeds all of the people. And it feeds them well; they’re so full that they have leftovers. Thus, Jesus has taken something small and insignificant and turned it into something extraordinary.

Fast-forward to the Last Supper. Once again, Jesus takes something that looks small and insignificant, blesses it, and gives it to those around them. And once again, He has done something extraordinary. While we can assume there was enough bread to feed the disciples in the Upper Room, a different sort of miracle has taken place: the bread has been transformed into Christ’s own Body, the same Body that is given to us today. When we receive the Eucharist, we don’t get a “piece” of Jesus’ presence like we would a piece of bread. We get His whole self, which gives and gives and never runs out.

Pope John Paul II referenced this idea in his encyclical letter On the Eucharist in Its Relationship to the Church, saying that “the Eucharist is a true banquet, in which Christ offers himself as our nourishment” (16). Calling something a “banquet” implies that it’s plentiful, that you can have as much as you want and never have to worry about running out. We usually think of this with regard to food. (Can you imagine a banquet of little Nutella mug cakes? Ah, if only…) But we as human beings have other hungers besides our hunger for food. We hunger for love and for peace. Friendship. Acceptance. Safety. Complete satisfaction. JPII’s bold claim is that Jesus, in the Eucharist, gives us all of these things.

So why is it that, most of the time, receiving the Eucharist doesn’t actually feel this way?

I think it’s because it’s an act of faith, and true faith is measured by its ability to persist even when we feel nothing at all. We have to remember that just because something is invisible or unfathomable doesn’t mean that it’s not true. Show five loaves and two fish to five thousand people, and they’ll say there’s no way it can be enough for all of them to eat. Yet somehow, it is. Show us the Eucharistic Body of Christ, and we’re tempted to say that there’s no way it will actually satisfy all of our desires. Yet somehow, faith tells us, it will. Jesus’ presence within us helps us in our journey through life by healing our sinfulness, giving us peace, and strengthening our desire for holiness. Ultimately, it brings us closer to the perfect satisfaction that is found in heaven.

This, of course, takes a lot of time and patience. Most likely, we’ll have to ride the struggle bus through a lot of periods in which we still feel like we don’t see the point.

Most importantly, though, experiencing the power of the Eucharist takes faith. And whether our faith is enough to move mountains or only the size of a mustard seed, our “Amen” is enough for Jesus to come and dwell within us and change our lives. All that matters is that we dare to hope that He can.

P. S. Check out this awesome priest who runs a Catholic cooking show on EWTN!