They sting a little, the words in today’s Gospel. “If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you” three months without the Eucharist I hear these words and a little panic rises in me. I should be spiritually starving by now, I should be aching from this enforced abstinence and my panic arises from the fact that, actually I’m not. I expected to be, in fact I prayed for it but in truth I feel very sustained.
I took this to prayer, concerned that I and quite a few others I’ve shared with are not crying out with hunger for the Eucharist. Don’t we love you as we should Lord? Have we become lukewarm ? Why do I not ache for you?
All this week we’ve had the fab stories of Elijah. Elijah fed by the Ravens, Elijah fed by the widow, Elijah brought bread and water by angels, Elijah eats with Elishas people. And today’s first reading is Moses reminding us how the Lord provided in the desert. That no one went without. (They moaned, in fairness but they were provided for) The Lord IS providing, in this apparent Eucharistic desert, in our little caves where we have run to, hiding from peril, when we have thought there is no way He can provide for us He comes in the unexpected, He comes in the everyday miracle of His presence. He comes through His word, through provision from those we maybe thought had nothing to offer.
I think we are being richly fed, if we are open to how He is providing. Our mighty God is not restricted to the Sacraments, He sees us, He sees our hearts and Just as He has promised we will never be orphans, He will never leave us to starve. Perhaps we need to look at this a little differently, what if we are living an extended experience of the mass, a time of preparation coming to Know Him through His word, a betrothal, a time of intention before the Consumation. What if at the end of this time we receive Him as if it were the first time, in a way we have never before because of the new disposition of our hearts, a more intimate way because we waited patiently and faithfully to become one with our spouse.
So will I be waiting outside the church tomorrow for those doors to open? yes, yes I will. Am I arriving emaciated and abandoned? No, I am coming full of thanksgiving for the God who has guided me through this wilderness to test me, to know my inmost heart and to help me fully trust in every word that comes from His mouth. Perhaps now as we near the edge of our time waiting, He will permit me the indulgence of a little hunger, or perhaps He won’t .
