Vatican City, 20 June 2014 (VIS) –
Yesterday afternoon, on the Solemnity of Corpus Domini, Pope Francis
celebrated Holy Mass in the square of St. John Lateran, the cathedral
basilica of Rome. He commented in his homily that human beings not
only suffer from physical hunger, but hunger also for life, love and
eternity, for the manna that God gave to the people of Israel in the
desert and which the Eucharist symbolises.
Referring to Moses' phrase: “The Lord
your God … fed you with manna which you did not know”, Francis
spoke about the history of the chosen people, whom God led out of
Egypt and their condition of slaves to guide them to the promised
land. However, once established there, the Israelites enjoyed
prosperity and were in danger of forgetting their past of famine and
despair. Moses urged them to return to the essentials, to the
experience of total reliance on God, when their survival was entirely
entrusted to His hands”.
“As well as physical hunger, man also
suffers from another form of hunger that cannot be sated with
ordinary food. It is a hunger for life, a hunger for love, a hunger
for eternity. Manna is the sign … that prefigured the food that
satisfies this profound hunger present in man. Jesus gives us this
nourishment – or rather, He Himself is the living bread that gives
life to the world. His Body is the true food in the form of bread;
His Blood is the true sustenance in the form of wine. It is not a
simple form of nourishment to sate our bodies, like manna; the Body
of Christ is the bread of the last times, able to give life, eternal
life, because the substance of this bread is Love”.
The Eucharist communicates “God's
love for us: a love so great that it nourishes itself; it is a
gratuitous love, always available to every person who hungers or who
is in need of regeneration. To live the experience of faith means
allowing oneself to be nourished by the Lord and to build our
existence not on material goods, but on a reality that does not
perish: the gifts of God, His Word and His Body”.
“If we look around ourselves”,
continued the bishop of Rome, “we realise that many forms of
sustenance are offered to us, that do not come from the Lord and
seemingly offer more satisfaction. Some sate themselves with money,
others with success and vanity, others with power and pride. But the
food that truly nourishes and sates us is only that which comes from
the Lord! The food that the Lord offers us is different from the
others, and it may perhaps be less appetising than other delicacies
the world offers us. We dream of other meals, like the Hebrews in the
desert, who missed the meat and onions they ate in Egypt, but forgot
that they ate those meals at the table of their slavery. In that
moment of temptation, they retained the memories of that food, but it
was a diseased memory, a selective memory”.
“The Father says to us: 'I have fed
you with manna which you did not know'. Let us restore our memory and
learn to recognise the false victuals that delude and corrupt,
because they are the fruit of selfishness, self-sufficiency and sin:
poisoned foods. Soon, in the procession, we will follow Jesus, truly
present in the Eucharist. The Host is our manna, through which the
Lord gives Himself to us. And we turn to Him with trust: Jesus,
defend us from the temptations of the worldly food that enslaves us;
purify our memory, so that we may not be imprisoned by selfish and
worldly selectivity, but become instead the living memory of Your
presence throughout the history of Your people, a memory that becomes
a 'memorial' of your gesture of redeeming love”.
Following the Eucharistic celebration,
the Holy Father led the procession along Via Merulana up to the
basilica of St. Mary Major, where he imparted his solemn blessing
with the Most Holy Sacrament.
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