A Sunday Reflection
By Ian Cesar Granada
I remember a French proverb that reads, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are,” Modern man and woman of today eat based on aesthetics and what is “good looking” and “sexy”, others due to health reasons, while others eat to maintain a certain lifestyle because of ideology or activism. As Catholics, we receive Holy Communion every time we participate in the Holy Eucharist, do we put importance on this act of receiving? What is the role of Faith every time we receive Jesus in Holy Communion? As we continue to hear the Bread of Life discourse, Christ presents himself as the sustenance of our life’s journey. Whenever we eat His Body, we will possess eternal life.
Jesus observed the ‘murmurings’ of the Jews like what they did in the time of Moses, complaining of their discomfort in the desert journey to the promised land. While in Jesus’ time, they failed to see the signs He was performing, the Jews in the narrative only chose to see Jesus as the son of Joseph, the carpenter? It is not with those who see Jesus as the Son, because the Father taught them, showed them who Jesus is, and our Faith; thanks to the grace the Father has taught us about Jesus, is our response to Jesus’ revelation and personhood.
In today’s world, it is sad that we haphazardly receive Holy communion. For us, it is a prize for the perfect Christians while others receive it with no Faith involved, thus, they remain lifeless and listless in a world that lures them further away from Jesus. It is becoming more of an amulet we receive to protect us from this unpredictable life. The Catechism for Filipino Catholics described this modern reality that we have been “sacramentalized but not yet evangelized.” (CFC# 1590)
One of my favorite Eucharistic quotation, attributed to St. Augustine reads, ‘behold what you are, become what you receive.’ Indeed, we are the Body of Christ, and we receive the Body of Christ to become the Body of Christ! We believe in Jesus because the Father has led us to him, as the Gospel tells us, “They shall all be taught by God” referring to Isa. 54, 13. This Faith in Jesus, as we receive Him in Holy Communion, feeds us the Bread of Life, the food for the journey of life. This food, then, makes us also the Body of Christ in this generation, bearers of faith, hope, and love like Jesus did. We continue to live what Jesus had started, as He is our head, and we are the Body of Christ.
Let us be mindful of this calling, we are the Body of Christ, each one of us is important, as we build up the Body of our Lord, thru us, Jesus continues to be Jesus in little and great ways, as long as we participate and do His Will in our lives. Let us pray to the Father to give us the grace to attach increasingly to Jesus, as He is the head. Come Lord Jesus Christ, live and reign in me forever! Amen.
Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are, we receive the Body of Christ as we are the Body of Christ in today’s world. Our Faith in Him helps us to believe that our life has meaning, and its purpose is always to praise and glorify God. We receive His Body because we hope that the Kingdom of God is here already but awaits its completion in eternal life. We receive Christ’s body so that we can love as Jesus loved.