Yesterday the Church celebrated the Solemnity of Corpus Christi - the Body of Christ. The
Solemnity goes back to the year 1264 when the great Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, proposed to Pope Urban IV that a feast be created to celebrate the joy of the Eucharist being the body and blood of Christ.
In the Gospel, Jesus says he is the living bread that has come down from heaven. The people around him struggle to understand what he means. They argue with each other. We might sympathise with them as many people still ponder the same question. How can Jesus possibly be our food?
Today, we begin to unpack this text by reflecting on what we hunger for. Physical hunger is a very real problem in our country and the world. If you are reading this, you are probably not physically hungry. You
have resources because you have access to the internet. However, if you look deeper, you might notice that you are hungry in the sense that you feel unfulfilled or feel an emptiness within. We all have, within us, ‘hungers’ that are not satisfied by the physical food we eat.
Sometimes we try to cover up the hunger within us by eating more or by living lavishly. But, unfortunately, our more profound need can lead us to overconsumption which means that we seek more and more, which in turn means less and less for others. This is often at the heart of
why there are so many physically hungry people worldwide. Our desire for more, our search for fulfilment, can be to the detriment of others. Jesus tells us that we will always be hungry and feel unfulfilled and empty unless we eat only the living bread he can offer.
Take a few moments today to get in touch with your feeling of being unfulfilled or empty. What are you hungry for? In what ways might you have sought to satisfy your hunger that has not taken away your feelings of being unfulfilled and empty?
Reflections by Russell Pollitt SJ
