Dear Friends,
The fourth beatitude in the Gospel of Matthew 5:6 reads, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.” Last week we started meditating on the different aspects and meanings of the Eucharist as we read from the Jesus’ speech on the Bread of Life.
Today, I would like to invite us to continue our meditation focusing on the Eucharist as Food that satisfies our hunger and quenches our thirst. Time and again we focus on just material satisfaction as we strive to follow Christ. Like the crowds in today’s gospel who were following Christ and were hungry, we are reminded that our hunger should go beyond the realm of earthly and material food. This because, man does not live only from bread but from every word that comes out of God’s mouth. Christ tells us that we have to seek food that gives eternal life.
The crowd in the gospel brought their own hungers. What would be your hunger today as you come to the encounter with the Lord? Something particular that you want changed in your life, your family or the world? What do you thirst for? By giving Himself to us as Bread of Life, Christ shows us that there is no hunger that He cannot satisfy and no thirst that He cannot quench. The only thing we need to do is to come to Him with the loads that crush us in our daily life. Everything that we can get in the world will just pass and is unable to satisfy our true hunger. He, who Justice itself will take us under his divine protection to lead us to the waters of everlasting life.
As we come to encounter Him and to be fed by Him at this Eucharist, let rely on Him knowing that He is the true Food we need to satisfy our hunger for eternal life and to quench our thirst to share eternal glory with Him. As we receive Him today, we come to Him with piety, respect and devotion, following in the footsteps of Saint Joseph, the man of great piety who relied solely on God to satisfy the desires of his life. And let us continue to pray for one another and for our parish family.
Fr. Emery