Jesus says in the Gospel today, "Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they died. I am the Bread of life that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and never die" (John 6:49-50). God gave Adam and Eve all kinds of good food in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:16). Sadly, their craving to eat beyond what God had provided led to their downfall (Genesis 3:6).
In the life of the Israelites, the wilderness episode isn't pleasant. God's chosen people were being led away from slavery in Egypt by Moses, passing through the desert's pitfalls and dangers.
The Israelites were then provided miraculous manna in the desert (Exodus 16:14ff). 'He furnished them bread from heaven, ready to eat, untoiled for, full of delights, and adapted to every taste' (Wis 16:20). The manna even "was blended to whatever flavour each one wished"! (Wisdom 16:21) All this revealed God's sweetness to His children. The Israelites in the desert soon grew tired of this miraculous gift. This food provided by God disgusted them (Numbers 21:5). They wanted meat, fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic (Numbers 11:4-5). That was their craving to eat beyond what God provided.
In Egypt, the Israelites had no army but were trained only to make bricks. Nonetheless, they conquered the people they encountered on their journey to Canaan. Mainly due to carrying the Arc of Covenant to all the battlefields. The arc of the Covenant simply held a piece of manna, Aaron's rod that bloomed and the tablets of the covenant. The Arc of the Covenant that held the manna gave the Israelites extreme power and advantage over the enemies.
So, in the manna in the desert, God miraculously provided his people with bread, which they ate and also kept in the Tabernacle so they might look upon it. Our connection to the Eucharist is clear: the bread becomes flesh, which we consume as the body of Christ and is preserved in the tabernacles of our churches for worship.
It is Jesus' body that is today's manna. In the Old Testament, both the manna and one who ate it had perished (John 6:49). However, the new manna is the flesh of Jesus Christ. This bread is both living and life-giving. And we call it Eucharist.
Four decorated panels adorn a church door in Cologne, Germany. The first panel shows six stone jars to recall Jesus' turning water into wine. The second shows five loaves and two fish to recall Jesus' feeding of the 5,000 at Capernaum and his promise in today's reading “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever”; Third panel shows the Last Supper when Jesus fulfilled his promise. In the fourth, Jesus is shown breaking bread with the two disciples at Emmaus. This door, a work of art, gives a better summary of the Eucharist, recalling how it was prefigured at Cana, promised at Capernaum, instituted at Jerusalem, and celebrated at Emmaus.
History repeats itself here when Jesus speaks of Himself as the life-giving bread. He is the true bread God gives to sustain his new people on their new journey toward the new promised land, heaven. Rejecting Jesus, refusing to take Him as bread from heaven, will surely bring eternal death.
If we realize the power of the Eucharist, the new manna, it can become a source of life, a guiding force and life-saving power, as it was for the Israelites (1 Kings 19:4-8). Let’s love the Eucharist and experience it so that it becomes the source and summit of our Christian life.
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