FEAST OF FAITH
The Eucharist: Food for Resurrection
How do we celebrate Easter, the greatest of our Christian feasts? By doing what we do every Sunday and every day: celebrating the Mass. On the first Easter, as the heartbroken disciples walked the road to Emmaus, the Lord was with them but they did not realize it. They only recognized him “in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 22:35).
It is the same for us. In the Mass—the breaking of the bread—we meet the risen Lord together. We meet him in each other—for by our baptism into his death and resurrection, we have become members of one body, the Body of Christ. We meet him in his word—in the liturgy the scriptures are proclaimed to us, that they might take root and grow in us. And we meet him in a special way in the Eucharist, the sacrament of his Body and Blood, which is food for resurrection: “whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:51). The Lord is risen indeed, and it is the Risen One who truly presides at this and every Eucharist.