The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
The eucharist, source of life
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Jesus said to them …Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life … remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me …whoever eats this bread will live forever.” Jn 6,51-58
The earthly life begins and ends with the body, like a candle that eventually turns off. God, to reveal completely himself to the man, became incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, who has saved us by offering his body on the cross and the Father has resurrected him with his body. He ascended to the heaven with his body, he formed the church which is his mystical body and he left to us as a gift his eucharistic body. We cannot explain how the body of the resurrected Christ, which is present in the bread and the wine of the eucharist, gives us the life, this is a mystery: we can only live it and by living it, we can only take note about. The first creation began with the prohibition against eating the forbidden fruit, the salvation is accomplished by the command to eat the eucharist. No one is worthy, but by receiving it we become worthy. That broken bread gives us the energy to walk every day along the streets of the world and it has the power to make us growing in more and more longing for God, so in the end we leave with joy our body, because we go to meet God in the eternity. Since when, every day, we go to receive the eucharist in the sanctuary of Saronno, our life has taken a different fullness; but not only ours. Let’s listen to this testimony of monsignor Riboldi, bishop of Acerra. “On a country road, I always meet in the morning an elderly woman. She stands up upright, leaning on two crutches which support her and facilitate her steps. I stopped her, some day, to ask where she was going. ‘I’m going, like any morning, to the holy mass, to receive the eucharist! I am eighty. It is my habit, since my youth, not to let pass even one day without receiving the eucharist. I am hardly able to do it. I do not want anyone to accompany me, because when walking I already anticipate the joy of receiving God in my heart and, when returning, the infinite joy to be with him. And I do not even feel the fatigue, as if he would be supporting me’. In front of my astonishment she said:’Father, we can give up many things in the life, which often do not have taste, or if they have, they do not satisfy. But we cannot give up to love and to be loved. And if the one who loves you, is your Lord, who becomes your life, this makes you fly. And you want me not to be filled by the love of God? This is the most beautiful gift which God gives me. And this hard work I am doing seems to me to be a walk towards the Paradise. If people would understand’. She shook her head and she went ahead, all concentrated by the expectation of receiving ’the bread of the life’ “. If people really would understand it!