Genesis 14:18-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 9:11-17
When We Break, We’re Broken; but he Broke First, so We’re Blessed!
Life is full of breaking and breakage! I am not talking about broken promises and marriages; I’m not thinking of broken economies and planetary break down; far from it! Rather, I am talking about breaking eggs to make omelet. Indeed, when we relish our omelet at breakfast, that was not the first breaking; when a chick breaks its shell, a new life begins in earnest; it begins in freedom, rather than in the confinement of an egg. Interestingly, this chick, when it hatches out, the role of the cockerel and the hen are embedded in it, the very first breaking and breakage! Thanks to egg-breaking, human terrestrial life is sustained, for food is necessary for life!
Our God, the Christian God, is good at breaking and breakages! The very first break of dawn, after the creation of luminaries, made possible not only the first blessing of what is “good,” but other goodies followed, culminating in the creation of humans. So with every breakage comes life.
With the Egyptians’ superior army in hot pursuit of the Israelites, darkness arose to separate the two camps. At the break of day, corpses were counted on one part of the shore and life saved on the other side of the sea! So, with every breakage comes life protected from harm!
The solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ tells the story of breaking and breakage. Our first reading starts out with God breaking into human history – the call of Abraham, and the vicissitudes attempting to frustrate God’s plans for his people. It also tells the story of Abraham’s break with his native land, people and culture, in search of a new land, identity and relationship. A break with earthly attachments open the door for a Godly life!
Abraham offers thanksgiving gifts to God today because his captured kinsman, Lot, regains his freedom from his captors. Just like God’s breaking into human history, Melchizedek shows up without invitation to accept and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God on behalf of Abraham, and he blesses Abraham. The breakage of the alliance of invaders brings life and freedom back to Lot!
Today’s gospel tells anew how God breaks into human history in the incarnation of his Son, Jesus Christ. The devil’s hijack and captivity of human beings under sin, receives a Savior, Jesus, in order to restore God’s original blessing. Jesus announces the nature and form of this liberation and blessing by feeding a hungry crowd, even though his own body and life will be the ultimate food for his children. From the stranglehold of death in sin and alimentary poverty, life is restored because God breaks into human history feeding his children with the “bread of angels”!
Our second reading narrates the hijack of the true meaning and celebration of Jesus’ Last Supper, which imparts a blessing, into a channel of a curse and ailment. This necessitates Paul’s intervention to restore God’s channel of blessing, the Eucharist, from the channel of sin and illness, which its abuse accrues for worshippers. Once more, life is defended against death and sin!
The “Breaking of Bread,” which is another name for today’s solemnity, recalls the brokenness of human life without God. The brokenness of human sins and infidelity. In reality, it is not “bread” that is broken at Mass, it is “life” that is broken, Jesus’ life, for the salvation of the world. A life was taken in order for lives to be restored and given to you and me. From the breaking of the life of Christ, a new life accrues to you and me, a blessing comes to us!
So, Jesus broke first, and we are blessed. But when we break, that is, when we share in the Eucharist, we remember that we are broken too: we die to sin in order to qualify to partake in the Eucharist; otherwise, we receive death, as Paul says, instead of life.
“When we break,” we break away from sin and death; and when “we’re broken,” on account of our sins and infidelities, we run to Jesus for healing, restoration and blessing; yes, “he is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” Indeed, at every Eucharistic celebration, “When we Break, We’re Broken; but he Broke First, so We’re Blessed!” Let us give thanks to a God who breaks and is broken for our salvation; a God whose breakage turns into food for eternal life for those who receive him worthily!
Less we forget, omelet is delicious and earthly; the Body and Blood of Christ lead us to life eternal. Let us work for the food which endures to eternal life; let us savour the taste of the bread of angels. Let us remember the life and love which procured this blessed food for us – Jesus’ death on a cross.
Asdignment for the Week:
Can you buy lunch for someone, especially a stranger, this week, in imitation of Christ who feeds the hungry?