Occasionally,
God provides food and drink miraculously, as for the widow Elijah
stayed with, or when Elisha fed the hundred. Jesus turned water into
wine; he fed 5,000 from five loaves and two fish. St. Dominic and his
mother multiplied wine; St. John Vianney multiplied wheat and flour. In
1949, rice was multiplied for the poor at the intercession of Bl. John
Macias at Ribero del Fresno; this led to his canonisation.
Such miracles are “tactful”. The cruse
of oil seems fuller than it should be; the cook ladles out rice, and
when she turns back the pot is full again. The bread and fish are passed
round, and somehow stretch. The people involved do a double-take before
realizing what is going on, and being struck by the Creator’s presence.
More often, God provides food and drink
in a less miraculous, but more complete and cooperative way. For he
holds in being the rain, the soil; the Sun, the light it sheds; the
chloroplasts, their photosynthesis; the treading of grapes; the yeast
and the fermentation process – and so water becomes wine. He holds in
being the combine harvesters, the bread-making machines, the baking
process…
We take all this for granted, and so we
should, just as most of the time we must take each other for granted (we
cannot throw a thank-you party every time someone around us does an
hour of his or her daily work!) The Creator is divinely self-effacing.
We must do a double-take if we are to wonder at the very being of all
things and all processes, and recognize how every crumb exists because,
here and now, God loves it.
These miracles start with something
natural, brought by those who will receive – the widow’s handful of
meal, the water which the servants drew at Cana, the five loaves and two
fish. God could make food and drink spring into being out of nothing,
as indeed he does make the whole cosmos spring into being out of
nothing. But he prefers that his miraculous gifts build on what, by his
previous gift, earth or sky has given and human hands have gathered or
made.
Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks:
“Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who bringest
forth bread from the earth.” He expressed the faith of the people
present, faith which the sign they witnessed was meant to enlarge. But
once Jesus had explained that his Flesh must be eaten and his Blood
drunk – implying he must be sacrificed – some were to find this New Law
“a hard saying”.
In obedience to Jesus, we bring what
earth has given and human hands have made. We repeat the formula he used
when supper was ended: “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” We run
together in one Eucharistic Prayer, one Prayer of Thanksgiving, Jesus’
blessing over the bread before the meal, his thanksgiving and
intercession over the chalice after it. We repeat the words of the
Creative Word: “This is my Body… This is the Chalice of my Blood…” And
so, in a most miraculous and a most complete and cooperative a way, the
Word who became flesh dwells among us. With a supreme tact he enables us
to eat his Body and drink his Blood beneath signs that tell us he is
our food and joy, strength and unity, pattern and life. We have to do
the double-take of faith, since the whole being of the bread and wine
becomes the whole being of Christ’s Body and Blood, at a depth where
only the Creator can work, and no natural scrutiny can penetrate.
The Eucharist radiates blessing on the
whole cosmos, and on the whole fabric of human life and work. This
powerful but gentle sign of Jesus’ Sacrifice, which is our New Law,
weans us off our resistance to the Beatitudes by which Jesus lived and
died. We who are nourished by his Body and Blood may be filled with the
Holy Spirit, whose coming is the fruit of Jesus’ Sacrifice. The Spirit
comes as Grace to build on the human nature he crafted. By what The
Catechism of the Catholic Church 687 calls a divine self-effacement, the
Spirit enlarges our hearts so that, by faith and love, we can welcome
the “hard saying” which is the Father’s Word, Jesus crucified.(Richard Conrad O.P.torch.op.org:here)
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