Christ is revealing His origin as well as His ultimate destination to us in our Gospel. As Christians we reflect upon these realties each year through our celebration of Christmas and Easter. Christ instructs us that He is the bread that came down from Heaven which reveals that His origin is divine in nature and thus too He is the Son of God. This is the mystery that we celebrate during the season of Christmas. At the conclusion of this Gospel Christ states: "the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." Here we notice the use of the future tense thus pointing towards His eventual offering of self upon the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. In our celebration of Holy Week and throughout the season of Easter we celebrate this great Christian mystery where Christ who is God made man comes to liberate us from our enslavement to sin and thus leads us toward our ultimate destination of the Heavenly Kingdom.
In our first reading we encountered Elijah who was on his journey towards his ultimate destination which is very similar to the journey that we must be willing to undertake towards Heaven. He remained in the desert for forty days and forty nights as he journeyed towards the mountain of Horeb. He was only a day into this journey when he laid below the tree famished with the knowledge of the vast journey which now laid before him. It was here that an angel came and gave him food to eat which would sustain him throughout the journey of his life towards this promised land. Without the food which he received he never would of made it throughout life's journey, but instead would of remained famished and thus too would of fell short of his ultimate destination.
Elijah sums up for us our own journey that we must be willing to make within this life. We are directed towards the mountain of Horeb which for us is the promised land of the Kingdom of Heaven. We must undergo each day a period of preparation such as Elijah who prepared himself for forty days. Along the way of this vast journey we fall, doubt, or despair, but despite all of this we come to trust in the bread which comes down from Heaven to feed us. This bread is the Son of God who eventually offers Himself to us that we may be able to carry out this vast journey that has now been set before us. In the Eucharist we come to partake of Christ who is food for the journey which leads us towards our ultimate destination of the Kingdom of Heaven.
As Saint Paul revealed to the Ephesians we too must come to trust that we have been sealed for the day of redemption. Through baptism and the sealing of the Holy Spirit we have been prepared for this journey of faith which has now been set before us. In baptism we were washed clean of the stain of sin, we were incorporated into the life of the Church, and thus conformed to Christ the prophet, king, and priest. Through Confirmation we were given the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which lead us into the world to proclaim the Gospel and thus remain faithful to it. We are also fed with the Eucharist which sustains us on this journey towards Heaven.
May we come to trust that Christ is indeed the bread that has come down from Heaven who gives us His flesh for the life of the world. Let us not be found caught up in the world, but instead be caught up in a life which reflects Christ who is present within the Eucharist. God did not take on our human flesh nor offer Himself upon the cross in order for us to remain enslaved to sin; rather we were given the sacraments in order that we may overcome all that plagues us in this life and thus totally surrender ourself to God by living a life that is worthy of what should be our ultimate destination, the Kingdom of Heaven.
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