A Beacon Of Light… Nourishment For The Journey
By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR.
(Editor’s Note: Fr. Richard D. Breton Jr. is a priest of the Diocese of Norwich, Conn. He received his BA in religious studies and his MA in dogmatic theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn.)
- + + Let’s begin our third day of reflection by praying our retreat prayer:
“Jesus, you invited the apostles to come away with you to a deserted place and rest awhile. Like your apostles, enable me to experience you on retreat — your suffering love and tender compassion. May I come to better know myself, to draw closer to you, and to thus be of better service to my brothers and sisters in the Church! Help me to listen attentively, to ponder prayerfully, to respond generously, and to benefit from the solitude and peace.
“Through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Sorrows, may I and my fellow retreatants leave our retreat as deeply committed Christians, better able to follow your footsteps in all the opportunities and challenges of life. Amen.”
Welcome back for week four of our mini-retreat. Let’s briefly recap how we got to this point. In our first week, we reflected on the journeys of life and faith, each unique, yet similar in their own way. Then in week two, we reflected on the map. One leads to an earthly destination, while Sacred Scripture is the map that leads in the journey of faith. In week three, we explored the importance of light and darkness and how light plays a pivotal role in our lives and is part of any journey. The flashlight illuminates the way on Earth, while the Light of Christ received in Baptism, shines toward the heavenly Kingdom.
Today we will reflect on the need for nourishment along the journey. When we attempt a long road trip, there is a need for food to maintain our hunger and concentration. If we were to drive from Boston to California, we would need to eat along the way. This could involve stopping at McDonald’s or Wendy’s, or even may include a small cooler in the car with goodies. Some of my favorite travel snacks are chips, jellybeans, and chocolate. Oh, we can’t forget the coffee! Coffee is a necessity on the earthly journey of life. Without it, the mind fails to wake up properly!
People on a faith journey need to be nourished as well. What is the nourishment of the journey of faith? The Eucharist is the essential nourishment on the faith journey. Unlike snacks and the food of the earthly journey that becomes part of us, the food on the journey of faith transforms us to be like it.
The Eucharist makes us more like Christ, or it should, because through it we become more like Christ. Sadly, we have seen a vast decline in the understanding of how important this “faith food” is. This food that leads us to Heaven has been plunked into the same category as earthly food. What for centuries has been considered supernatural spiritual food for the soul, has been lowered to the category of earthly food. Furthermore, we can see by recent developments in society how many faithful Catholics fail to recognize, or remember, how the “faith food” differs from earthly food.
The misunderstanding regarding the importance, and I must say the very essence, of the Eucharist has been put on public display by the U.S. Church hierarchy. The idea of even having to take a vote on how to present the Church’s century-old teachings regarding the Eucharist is quite scary. This teaching has not changed in over two thousand years.
During Jesus’ public ministry He spoke freely regarding the importance of receiving His Body and Blood. The Gospel of St. John reminds us of this in the bread of life discourse where Jesus in speaking to His disciples says:
“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever” (Gospel of St. John, 6:53-58).
If we truly understood this, there wouldn’t be such confusion in our times. We need the “faith food” of the Eucharist now more than ever before. Our lives depend on it!
On the night before He was to give up His life for us all, Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist for our salvation. St. Luke’s Gospel reminds us how important this “faith food” is for us. It is so important that Jesus gives Himself to us as a sacrament to nourish us:
“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ Then He took the cup, gave thanks, and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Gospel of St. Luke, 22:26-28).
Imagine — Jesus loved us so much that He offered Himself as the food for our journey of faith. Why? Precisely because there is no other food on Earth that has the power to assist us on our journey of faith. Countless saints and Popes have recognized this for centuries. The famous Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney, once said: “There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us.”
St. Cyril of Jerusalem said of the Eucharistic food: “Just as by melting two candles together you get one piece of wax, so, one who received the Flesh and Blood of Jesus is fused together with Him and the soul finds that he is in Christ and Christ is in him.”
Pope St. John Paul II had a wonderful devotion to the Eucharist. One of his famous quotations on the Eucharist reminds us of how important it is in our daily lives:
“Only through the Eucharist is it possible to live the heroic virtues of Christianity: charity, to the point of forgiving one’s enemies; love for those who make us suffer; chastity in every age and situation of life; patience in suffering and when one is shocked by the silence of God in the tragedies of history or of one’s own personal existence. You must always be Eucharistic souls in order to be authentic Christians.”
As we can see, the Eucharistic food on the journey of faith transforms and nourishes us to the point of becoming like Christ!
A True Renewal
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (nn. 1324-1327) states:
“The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit’ of the Christian life. The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch….The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit. . . .
“Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all. In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.”
We need a true renewal of Eucharistic understanding in our times. This is essential if we are to have the spiritual fortitude necessary to combat the evils attacking.
May the food of angels, be for us the food in this earthly life that leads us to Heaven.