IT HAS BEEN noticed that
there is a growing popularity of perpetual Eucharistic adoration in the
country. Probably there is no diocese in
the Philippines where one cannot find one or two adoration chapels. And if one asks those who frequently visit
them, he will likely be told that it is there that they pour out their hearts
before the Lord, offering their thoughts, actions, asking favors from him, or
simply enjoying the nearness with him.
The devotion is of course a praiseworthy custom, because the adoration
of the Sacred Host in these chapels is firmly founded on the belief that the
Lord is truly, really, and substantially present in it. However, it would be even more praiseworthy
if we, Christians, are led to a wider understanding of what the Eucharist is
all about. For example, we can be taught
that the Eucharist is an experience of the presence of the Risen Lord who wants
us to reach out to others, especially the poor and the needy, in loving
service.
Today’s Gospel on the miracle of the loaves can enlighten
us on this aspect. To begin with, the account of the feeding of the five
thousand (Luke 9:11-17) is the only miracle story of Jesus’ Galilean ministry
that is recounted in all the four gospels (John 6:1-15; Mark 6:30-44; Matt
14:13-21). It is obviously a symbolic
miracle. With his inauguration of the
Kingdom of God, Jesus now provides a foretaste of the Old Testament promises
about God feeding his people in the Kingdom: “On this mountain the Lord of
hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines,
juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines” (Isa 25:6). In the story that gives us a glimpse of what
the Kingdom is all about, Jesus is the host, welcoming the uninvited and
intrusive crowd. In unfolding the
meaning of the Kingdom, he cares for his people who suffer from hunger and
want. The kingdom of God is thus not
wholly spiritually; it is a community where all bodily and material needs are
satisfied. Luke brings home this point
by linking the miracle to the Eucharist, which is the microcosm of the Kingdom
of God.
To be sure, the linkage between the account of the
miracle of the loaves and the Eucharist can seen in the way Luke describes the
feeding of the five thousand and in the way he narrates the institution of the
Eucharist. The parallels are so obvious that
one is led to conclude that the eucharistic liturgical formulations colored the
account of the multiplication of the bread.
The wording matches almost verbatim with that in Luke’s account of the
institution (Luke 22:19). The sequence
of the verbs “having taken,” “he blessed,” “he broke,” “he gave,” immediately
recalls the Eucharist. Moreover, the
sequence could be compared with the meal scene that concludes the encounter
with the Risen Lord at Emmaus which is doubtless eucharistic (Luke 24:29-31:35). This implies that for Luke the meaning of the
Eucharist is to be seen in the feeding of the five thousand. Equally important, one should not fail to
point out that the blessing and the breaking of the bread which Jesus did in
Bethsaida (9:11) is, as Luke recounts, continued in the practices of the early
Church: in the agape meals where sharing is the common feature (Acts 2:46) and
in the distribution of goods to those in need (Acts 4:35). These reflect the responsibility given by
Jesus to the apostles to nourish the Christian communities: (Luke 9:13).
What is Luke’s point in linking the miracle with the
Eucharist? The evangelist seems to be
saying that as part of the realization of the kingdom of God, the community of
the reconstituted Israel, God’s people, is not only being healed
psychologically and spiritually, but also being nourished eucharistically. There are three interconnected meanings of
eucharistic feeding, but all of them have something to do with what ought to
happen in the community in which God’s kingdom is being realized. First of all, the life of the community is
centered on the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist, but this celebration
cannot be isolated from the ministry of feeding the hungry; otherwise, the
liturgy will be reduced to a ritual that is divorced from life.
For this reason,
it is not enough to receive communion without mortal sin; it is equally
important that the reception leads to the sharing of resources with the hungry
and those in need. Second, this also means
that satisfying the hunger of the community members is not in itself a
Christian ministry. Even Communists, who
do not believe in God, still less in Jesus, feed the hungry. Rather, action on behalf of the hungry, the
poor and the disadvantaged must be motivated by the Eucharist and one’s faith
in it. And third, the feeding is done in
the manner of the Eucharist: it is really a breaking of one’s bread, not just
an act of giving that one does simply because he no longer needs the
resources. Rather, it is a form of
giving in which part of the giver dies, just as the Eucharist symbolizes the
dying of Jesus.
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