From the Friars: Having All Sweetness Within It

My grandmother made the best cookies in the world. Her husband, my grandfather, was a farmer by trade before moving to Detroit from Quebec one hundred years ago. He owned an empty lot next to his house in the big city and cultivated a large garden which included many raspberry bushes. The only thing on earth better than those cookies was a large bowl of vanilla ice cream covered with fresh raspberries.

Today is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. In the first reading from Deuteronomy, Moses exhorts the Israelite people to remember the miracle of the manna in the desert. Jesus refers to this bread from Heaven in His discourse on the Bread of Life in John 6. We see clearly now how the manna was a prophetic sign or figure of the Holy Eucharist, the true bread from heaven. Even before Our Lord instituted this “Sacrament of Sacraments”, the Jewish people believed that the manna still existed in Heaven and that the Messiah would once more feed them with this supernatural food.

The Book of Wisdom says about the manna: “You gave your people the food of angels, …providing every pleasure and suited to every taste.” (Wis 16:20) This seems strange because the chosen people had complained about the boring manna, “we loathe this worthless food” (Num 21:5), so much that God punished them with poisonous snakes. How can we reconcile this seeming contradiction?

The pleasure of delicious food, of cookies or raspberries with ice cream for example, is a gift from God but also a way that God speaks to us. It passes quickly and can become addictive and destructive if we do not understand its purpose. It points to a higher reality that will fulfill every desire forever, which is God Himself. This ultimate food is the Most Sacred Body and Blood of Jesus. The physical taste of the host is bland and boring. But faith is able to savor Him Who is the source of all sweetness.

Let us move beyond the signs so as to fully receive the Reality.

Happy Corpus Christi!

–Fr. Peter