Eucharistic meditation

Genesis 1:29: And God said, See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food . . . . I have given every green herb for food.

Trees were first given for food. God made them to turn water and sunlight and dirt into fruit for Adam and Eve and all the animals.

At this table, though, He doesn’t offer us fruit freshly plucked from the tree. He gives bread and wine. To become food for this table, grain has to be ground to flour and put through the fire; wine has to be trampled underfoot and aged.

The Son of God comes to us in such food because that is the way He came to us long ago in His advent in flesh. He came to be ground and trampled and baked in the fire; He came as One despised, hated, envied, betrayed, rejected, killed, buried. Only then was He fully prepared to be our food.

We become what we eat. We eat to become food for the world. Like Jesus we become bread as we share the sufferings of the One who came to us, as we share the bread of the Last Adam, the bread that is the Last Adam.