Christ is risen!
Indeed He is risen!
And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. (John 6:35)
Christ’s claim to be “the bread of life” is another way in which He lays spiritual claim to uniting earth and heaven. This reconciliation between God and humans is our salvation. In Christ Creator and creation are once again brought into communion. Stephen Muse comments:
What we receive in this way is raised to another level, just as bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, though remaining bread and wine. When we receive these elements with discernment of the relationship that unites heaven and earth, they become nourishment for our being. ‘Give us today our daily being bread‘ is a prayer to God that we may receive all the world and one another as Eucharist, on a daily basis, and become Eucharist ourselves for others.
Muse then comments in a footnote about the meaning of daily bread in the Gospel:
The Greek word in the Lord’s Prayer usually translated into English as ‘daily’ is epiousion. According to Origen, St Gregory Nyssa, and others, this word is something of a neologism, a combination of epi, meaning ‘beyond’ or ‘above’, and ousia, the word for essence or ‘being’. In other words, it serves as a modifier for the word bread (arton). In this sense, the phrase ‘our daily bread’ should be rendered to convey a meaning that includes being nourished ‘beyond our physical being’ by God. It takes on Eucharistic overtones referring to the bread of heaven which is Christ. In Latin, it was translated as ‘super-substantial’ bread.
I am choosing the word being to emphasize this Eucharistic relationship that is essential nourishment for humanity who in fact cannot live by bread alone. Our most important nourishment is the living person of God. While this refers to the mystery of the transformation of the coinherence of bread and wine and the Body and Blood of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, it goes beyond this to include the mystery of how created human beings are transformed into vessels of the Holy Spirit, bearers of the Uncreated Light, on a daily basis. The encounter between God and humanity is reciprocal and personal: God becomes human and humans are infused with the Divine life wherever we are truly present to the other.
Muse continues his comments noting why it is we do not always experience the spiritual power of the Eucharist. He has Christ telling us:
The problem with you is that you ask to see Me, and then when I come, you are so busy looking for Me in other places and in other faces than those around you, that I cannot feed you. I cannot give you the daily bread for your being, because you are not aware of your deep hunger and your need. You are already so full from eating food which does not make for eternal life, satisfying your individual ego with the knowledge that you lack an appetite for Me. (BEING BREAD, pp x-xi, 11)
See also my post Food of Heaven vs Food which Perishes. (May 21)
Fraternized 