Richard Hooker, the sixteenth century Anglican theologian, wrote that Scripture shows that the material world both points to, and is entirely inhabited by, the spiritual world. He considered the sacraments as the perfect manifestation of the inter-penetration of spirit and matter, describing them as the “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” In today’s Gospel, Jesus begins what will be a long teaching on the meaning of the Eucharist, that began with the physical example of this spiritual grace in the feeding of the five thousand.

In the Eucharist, Christians stand or kneel before a sacrificial altar; where we consume what we believe is the body and blood of the one we acknowledge as the incarnation of God. This act already destabilises consensus reality about what things are, and what they represent. What we are saying is that, just as our daily meals supply us with physical energy to function as embodied beings; this sacramental meal is providing us with an equally potent source of energy essential for life. Moreover, the meal is a veritable bottomless cornucopia. “Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

The power of love is made possible through the bread of life and the cup of salvation wherein dwells the incarnate God, of whom we partake at the Eucharist. We do well to remember and respect the power of this sacrament to name the truth, and thus defy the lie that what we see is what we get. There is more. The poet, James Broughton, wrote that “the greatest enemy of the soul is the literal mind.” As long as we choose a literal way of seeing our lives and responding to the world around us, we will always see it as lacking – because such an understanding is based on a theology of scarcity. The Eucharist is the gate into a new interpretation, a true understanding of the way things really are: abundant, vibrant, and spiritual.

Jesus tells us that he is food and drink for the world – capable, in his body, of supplying the spiritual energy needs of all creation for all time. That food and drink of life is love. And love requires a response. Unrequited love is squandered love. But if we pledge to return the love we have been freely offered here, we promise an unlimited source of energy for the world. Energy which has the power to shift us from a path of greed, waste, and consumption towards a path of sharing, compassion and care.

Father Neil Fernyhough

Download the Liturgy at Home booklet for Sunday, August 11, 2024.