Recently, I was doing some yard work with my four-year-old son. During our work, my shovel accidentally hit a worm and cut it in half. My son, who loves to find worms in our yard, examined the worm, and when he found that the worm wasn’t moving, he exclaimed, “The worm died and went to heaven!” I said in reply that only people go to heaven. A few “why” questions and answers followed: he was asking me why people die. I explained to him the story of the Garden of Eden. I focused particularly on the Tree of Life that Adam and Eve used to eat from and imparted the ability to live forever, thus enabling them to escape death. As I finished the story, I didn’t want to leave him only with the dreary picture of fallen humans doomed to die. So, I followed it up with explaining how God restores what man wounds by sin.
God restores what man wounds by sin
I explained how, even though the fruit from the Tree of Life is not available to us, God has provided us a new food to nourish us. With the restoration of all things in Christ, the Cross has become the new Tree of Life and the Eucharist has become the new fruit of the tree that imparts eternal life to those who consume it. With this connection in mind, we can more clearly see why Jesus put such emphasis on eating when He says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”
As this Sunday is Corpus Christi, we should strive to re-double our devotion to the Eucharist. We should see in it our Life and Resurrection. With it, there is nothing on this earth or under it that can stop it. Without it, we have no life within us.
[Readings: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:51-58]
Thank you. Very nice.