Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
"The greatest hunger is the hunger for love." Mother Teresa says this
often, and, after her years of experience living among, feeding,
clothing and caring for the poorest of the poor, she is an expert
on human needs. Jesus Christ is that love incarnate for which every
human being has been created. Every human being will satisfy their hunger
for God only by seeking satisfaction in God. Jesus Christ is that bread,
truly present among us: the Bread of Life. "The bread that I shall
give is my flesh, for the life of the world." And in this Bread alone
can our thirst for love be satisfied.
The Catechism offers a meditation on our Lord's teaching in today's
Gospel, and on the petition of the Lord's Prayer for our "daily bread."
This petition, with the responsibility it involves, also applies to
another hunger from which men are perishing: 'Man does not live on
bread alone, but...by every word that proceeds from the mouth of
God,' (Deut 8:3; Mt 4:4) that is by the Word he speaks and the Spirit he
breathes forth. Christians must make every effort "to proclaim the good
news to the poor." There is a famine on earth, "not a famine of bread,
nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord." (Am
8:11) For this reason the specifically Christian sense of this fourth
petition concerns the Bread of Life: The Word of God accepted in faith,
the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist.(Jn 6:26-58) (CCC 2835)
God is love, and we possess the love of God by possessing his life,
receiving His Body and Blood in the Communion of the Mass. "Unless
you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have
no life in you." With this gift we lack nothing in this world, for
infinite love is ours.
