JESUS the Christ has made the ultimate sacrifice to show the love of God for us his children. This is what we celebrate in the Mass. This love is a nourishing and saving love. It is a nourishing love that saves us from the death dealing hunger of our body that needs to be nourished by the material food. It recalls and promises the realization of the words of Our Lord who said, “Do not be anxious about what you shall eat.” In the episode in the Gospel in which he performed the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves of bread and fishes he showed that he is the one that provides the material food we need to live. He however reproaches them for seeking only this material food from him. More than this saving from physical hunger God in Christ has saved from the greatest hunger of all, namely, the hunger for love, the love of God and the love of our fellowmen. St. Paul speaks of this love as spiritual nourishment that comes from the Holy Spirit. He calls these the fruits of the Holy Spirit such as faith, hope, love, generosity, peace, knowledge and understanding, holiness, order, self-control, etc….which if we partake of will bring life everlasting. All these are found in the humanity of Christ, in his body and spirit by the way he lived. But most of all by the way that he has united himself to us, and us to him, in body and spirit in everything good in the world that he continually gives to us for our physical and spiritual nourishment. We remember and celebrate this each time we receive him in Holy Communion. When Christ first spoke of giving his Body and Blood as food many of his disciples left him. Some probably thought that this smacked of cannibalism. On the other hand he said this not only as a kind of a metaphor but very literally. His body and his blood embody the love that will nourish us and save us from the death dealing hunger of body and spirit. His body and blood is the summation of all that he has created in the world. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. “I am the bread come down from heaven. He who eats of me will have life.”(John 6:51-55) These words were beyond the understanding of many of his hearers. They would be able to understand these words only if they allowed their mind and heart to be raised to the new way of understanding that comes from being enlightened by the Holy Spirit. The apostles and the other disciples also did not really fully grasp the meaning of his words that he spoke but they knew enough of him to believe him and trust that the time will come when they would fully grasp what he said, “To whom else shall we go, you have the words of everlasting life.” God has saved us through Christ Son who was with him and his Spirit before the creation of the world. The Son is the word of God referred to by John in his Gospel when he wrote, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the Word was God”. (John 1:1) This word is Jesus Christ who became man like us so that we may eat of his word. The word he speaks that feeds us in body and Spirit, is also he himself. Like two lovers whose love enables them to understand in a new way their physical interaction so that it is not merely earthly but raised up to God’s way of understanding of it as an expression of his love that he has shared with them. Christ became man to give this understanding to us. By raising our minds and heart in prayer we can come to an understanding of this. This is signified and made present to us whenever we receive Holy Communion. If we want this nourishment that saves and gives life everlasting we must go to him and feed on his body and blood for this sums up in a very real way, all that he has been doing in the world for us that we may live. This has been realized most of all in his offering of himself for us on the cross for the forgiveness of our sin and our rising to new life. Christ has made this nourishment for eternal life available to us in his Church in the celebration of his word and the offering of His Body and Blood at the altar of the new sacrifice or the new covenant which is the table or the “la mesa” of the Lord which is another word for the Mass that he celebrated in his last supper with the apostles. He has commanded that we celebrate this Last Supper in remembrance of him. “As often as you shall do this, you shall do this in remembrance of me.”