Whenever we hear the words, “I am the bread of life,” we usually think of Holy Communion, or of the Holy Eucharist, where Jesus, the real Bread from heaven, comes in contact with us: He gives His life by losing His own. He brings joy through His suffering on the Cross.

Many times, we hold on to a faith in Jesus that is all about happiness, wealth, success, deliverance and bliss. Yes, this is what God wants for us as His gift and reward. But Jesus leads us to blessings through the painful act of losing, act of dying. He leads us to joy through a downpour of tears. How else can we explain the puzzles of Christian life – temptations, sufferings, defeats, losses, anxieties, sickness and death? These, too, God uses to allow us to pass through purification, strength and victory.

Every time we line up for Communion, let us imagine Jesus’ sweat, blood and tears. Unite to Him our struggles, our failures, our challenges, our pains; unite these with the broken pieces of Himself shared to us in the Holy Eucharist.

Such irony, to be broken in order to be shared, to be joined to us so we can be whole and made holy again. Remember, God uses broken things: it takes broken soil to produce a grain, broken grain to make bread, broken bread to give strength.

We recover the real meaning of the Holy Eucharist when we partake in the broken body Jesus, and unite it with our own.

Sono semipro grate,
Father Erick

(For the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time)