Food for the journey

Food for the journey is a term often associated with viaticum, the communion that we may receive when we are very near death. The image of the Lord feeding us one more time before we pass from this life is profoundly beautiful and loving, but Food for the journey also brings to mind the unique story in Luke’s Gospel, the Road to Emmaus. The Risen Lord accompanies two disciples who are leaving Jerusalem. They are quite troubled over all that happened with Jesus, and as they journey, Jesus opens their minds to the ways in which Scripture foretold everything that must happen to him in order that he could accomplish our salvation. The travelers only recognize Jesus when he breaks the bread at supper, blesses it, and gives it to them. In this wonderful story, Jesus feeds their minds and their spirits even before they invite him to eat a meal with them.

Throughout history, the Lord has provided Food for the journey for his people. The manna that the Lord gave to the people of Israel to sustain them in the desert was an early prefiguring of the Eucharist. The feeding of the multitudes in the Gospels also prefigure the Eucharist, when Christ fed thousands with a few loaves and two fish.

Throughout our lives, we need the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist to sustain us, showering us with his grace. The Eucharist can also transform us with God’s sanctifying power, and conform us to his will. We not only take Jesus into our selves, we become what we eat.

In his book The Living Bread, Thomas Merton writes: “This Sacrament is not given to us merely in order that we do something, but that we may be someone: that we may be Christ. That we may be perfectly identified with him.”

In The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church, you will find highlights of saints, included is Blessed Carlo Acutis, who died at the age of 15, and was beatified in 2020. He said “The Eucharist is my highway to heaven.” Communion with the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament was central to his life. The first U.S.-born saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton journaled about the powerful intimacy of the Eucharist. On her first day as a Catholic she wrote “At last, he is mine, and I am his!” Many of our great saints expressed the essential nature of the Eucharist in their lives.

We are created with a hunger to know God, and to seek him. That longing is wonderfully fulfilled in receiving the Eucharist. At our baptism, we are welcomed into the Body of Christ, the Church, but this is not intended to be a passive membership. We are called to serve God and our fellow man. As we are sent forth at the end of Mass, we are called to go out in our world and bring Christ to others — to be Christ for others. This is our intended journey, and we need Christ’s presence to support us on our way.

The Eucharist is the greatest gift that Jesus left us, because it is his Body, given up for us, His presence with us. Each time that we say “Amen!” as we receive Holy Communion, we reaffirm our faith in that Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and graciously accept his gift, given freely for our salvation.

God also gave us free will, and so it is our choice to accept this greatest gift. In the Emmaus story, Jesus paused on the road, as if he was going another way. The disciples asked him to join them on the last leg of their journey, and that made all the difference. No matter what our journey looks like, we can choose to encounter Christ on our way in the beautiful gift of the Eucharist.