“Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” John 6:5
There’s a deep longing inside of us, and no matter how much we try to fill it with things of the world, things that we’re familiar with such as wealth, pleasure, power, honor, success, titles, degrees, and fame, the thirst or hunger remains. What we yearn for, what we’re missing is something that only Christ can give – the life which Christ embodies and possesses, the life which we lost at the Fall; therefore, only Christ can satisfy that thirst or hunger which remains no matter how much we try to satisfy it with something else. This is what we find in the Gospel. Jesus asks the question of Phillip knowing very well that what the people needed wasn’t bread from the world but from heaven. Jesus knew exactly what needed to be done because the people hungered and searched again for something that only He could provide – himself, his life, and He was willing to satisfy as He continues to do so today through the Eucharist.
Like the multitude in the Gospel, we too are hungry for the Lord. More than an encounter, we seek his life within us. Prayer may be a good start, but it’s not enough. Our soul is yearning for life, and the soul can’t be fully satisfied with prayer; the soul needs the sacramental gift – the only thing which contains the fullness of Christ and the life of Christ which we so desperately desire. Jesus then feeds us through the Eucharist which Pope Francis describes as “a unification of persons; us and the person who comes to meet us and desires to unite himself to us in the Son of God.” He goes on to say that “receiving the Eucharist means adoring the One whom we receive. Precisely in this way and only in this way do we become one with him.” Christ wants to have a personal encounter with each one of us, and so, do we. The Eucharist breaks down barriers between us and the divine to nourish. Therefore, if we want to grow in faith and be satisfied from the inner craving, that nothing in this world could satisfy, we need to be fed by the Body and Blood of Christ – an event that takes place, as it did in today’s Gospel, in communal worship. For this reason, Mass becomes our weekly occasion to encounter and be fed by Christ.
Nothing else satisfies; nothing else ever will. As Saint Augustine once said, “you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
In Christ
Fr Robert