Letters from Fr. Carlos

 

This Saturday, we are celebrating First Communion for our little ones. It is, of course, a special day for them, their families and our parish. But it also gives each one of us an opportunity to contemplate how we view the Eucharist in our own lives. Like many of us, I can become habituated to receiving the Eucharist and forget just how great of a gift it is for me personally.

 

Christ did not want us ever to be alone, so he became food for our journey through life. The symbolism of this is not lost in the scripture: he was laid in a manger at birth, most likely in a trough where animals come to feed; the town of Bethlehem where he was born in Hebrew translates to “house of bread;” Jesus tells his disciples at the Last Supper to take and eat, “this is my body…this is my blood…do this in memory of me.”

 

Our eyes, noses and taste buds fool us in this. For the host he inhabits tastes like a wafer in our mouths. The wine tastes like wine we might drink over a meal. But the spiritual reality that it is the body and blood of Christ can only be grasped through faith.

 

And faith is not magic. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, faith is the act of the intellect, prompted by the will, by which we believe the truth of all that God has revealed on the basis of the authority of the one who has revealed it. The one who has revealed this miracle of the bread and wine is none other than Jesus the Christ himself.  

 

This weekend as you receive Christ himself as food for your journey, take a moment to say a prayer of thanksgiving like our little ones will at First Communion. Thanks for this spiritual food from God’s banquet of love, that is made present at every mass through signs and symbols, for the betterment and healing of you and me.