The Fifth Luminous Mystery: The Institution of the Eucharist

The following is the sixth of twenty monthly reflections about the Mysteries of the Rosary as they relate to family life.  The mysteries will not be necessarily chronological but presented as they interact with the liturgical year.

            Traveling through my home state of Kansas, drivers encounter a curious sign there along the interstate.  It states simply how many people on average a typical Kansas farmer feeds.  The number has grown over the years, and I remember as a boy feeling a special sense of pride whenever I saw it.  One of my grandfathers was a farmer, and my uncle and godfather Tony still farms today.  Of course, as a kid, I took the sign a bit too literally as I imagined my uncle handing out over a hundred loaves of bread to a thankful line of people!  That image of a benefactor giving food to hungry people came to me this month as I considered our mystery of the rosary, The Institution of the Eucharist.  Yet this gift is no ordinary bread as it feeds us in ways beyond our physical needs.

            Jesus does something very special at the Last Supper.  He and his disciples are eating the Passover meal to commemorate the Hebrew people’s flight from Egypt and deliverance from slavery.  Jesus indeed recalls those events but then does something new, establishing an everlasting covenant between God and humanity, one that has the power to deliver us from slavery to sin and death.  His words that night prefigure what he will do the next day as he offers his body on the cross and pours out his blood, a sign that seals this eternal covenant.  Though we do not have the privilege of seeing this sacrifice firsthand, it is made present to us each time we celebrate Mass, and the Eucharist has become a perpetual sign of our union with God.

            We do well to notice, too, the importance of Jesus’ celebrating that first Eucharist as a meal with his followers, who were in many ways his family during his years in active ministry.  Jesus does not institute this sign out in the desert or alone in prayer.  Rather, he does it in the midst of a community, and this is still one of the gifts of the Eucharist.  It has the power, as we celebrate it with one another, to draw us together and sanctify our relationships, families, communities, and world.  In fact, we are what we eat.  We consume the Body of Christ and in so doing again become the Body of Christ.  Living as members of that body has a twofold responsibility.  First, we must act in love and service to our other members, taking care not to alienate one another.  Second, we are compelled to reach out in charity to those not part of the body, just as Jesus ministered to those outside of normal or accepted social circles.

            To be able to fulfill these responsibilities, it is essential that we stay close to the Eucharist throughout our daily lives.  We are only required to receive it once a year, but we have the ability to do so each week as part of our Sunday worship or even daily if possible.  We also can pray before the Eucharist in adoration, as part of Eucharistic processions, or simply in the presence of the tabernacle.  Like any relationship, the more we nurture our bond with the Eucharistic Jesus the more we are able to live faithfully our lives of Christian witness.

The Eucharist is our spiritual food for the journey home to God, and it sustains us in ways beyond ordinary bread.  At Masses all over the world this coming Sunday, millions will line the aisles of churches around the world and receive this nourishment in thanksgiving.  There is not a sign big enough to fit on the side of a highway to count all the saints in heaven who have been fed by this most precious gift, and our hope in eating it is to one day join them in everlasting happiness.