The host and the cup is the experience that brings us together

By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor

“The best proof of love is trust.” — Joyce Brothers.

Does celebrating Eucharist, receiving the body and blood of Christ, satisfy our deepest hungers and thirsts?

What are our deepest hungers and thirsts?

Do we long for justice? Is peace something we thirst for among nations, in our cities, on our streets, within our own hearts?

Over time, have our families fractured and disintegrated, or simply drifted apart?

Are we hungry for reconciliation, healing, and a new unity?

Today, the scriptures speak about these hungers and thirsts being satisfied.

“Come to the water. Come, receive grain and eat. Delight in rich fare. Come to me; listen, that you may have life,” we see in the first reading.

Paul proclaims the conviction that the love of God for us cannot be taken from us: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

But in the Gospel, Jesus hears the painful news that his cousin, John the Baptist, had been killed; he goes off alone to a deserted place. But when Jesus disembarks from the boat, he finds the crowds who had followed him.

He feels: compassion, pity, the need to teach and heal; he even feeds them (5,000 men, not counting the women and children), multiplying the fish and the loaves.

And there were twelve wicker baskets of leftover food.

Why do we come to church? Are we being fed? Does our thirst get satisfied? Do we even know for what we hunger and thirst? Does being fed depend on the priest — somewhat, a lot, entirely?

Does the community touch us, too, with its faith, hope, love, and prayerful praise? Does the beauty of the church or temple also touch our hunger for a sacred space that heals, touches, strengthens, and brings peace?

We are here for free, too. There is no cost. Yet we give generously, because we know the cost of providing all of this?

Do we give generously? Do we love generously? Do we support financially, prayerfully, lovingly, our church?

“The hand of the Lord feeds us; He answers all our needs” (Psalm 14).

The host and the cup is the experience that brings us together and opens the many, many, many ways in the liturgy that the Lord feeds us, gives us drink — satisfying our deepest hungers and thirsts.

Come! Eat! Drink!

Listen! Love! Sing!

Give praise! Be filled!

Find life! Share hope!

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Father Perry D. Leiker is the 14th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at perry.leiker@gmail.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.