 I'm sure at one time or another everybody has had an occasion such as this. You're at home, it's the evening, you don't feel like cooking, so you decide to go out. Everyone? Everyone? Of course, of course. Even though we have actually food in the kitchen, we have food in the pantry, we have food in the refrigerator, but we want to go out. Nothing wrong with that. Friars are there every now and then too. Now, the next decision is obviously, well, where are we going to go? So we're going to have Italian or Thai or Mexican or barbecue, so we've got to figure this out. And then as we figure that out, then we're going to end up going to the restaurant and we all grab in the car, jump in, take off, and we get there and there's a line. So we go and we wait and we put in our name and they take our phone number and they're going to text us. It's going to be 20 minutes, that's fine. So we just, sometimes, patiently wait 20 minutes, amen. And then the next thing we do is we sit at the table and they said, would you like an appetizer? Which is interesting because what they're doing is they're giving us food before our food, but we say, yes, of course, we want an appetizer to get us really ready to eat, right? And then we have our meal and we have our dessert to just kind of wrap things up. We do this time and time again, very tidally, very, this is what we do here. Imagine the same scenario if you were hungry, I mean really hungry. I've never been really hungry, even though I told my mom growing up, I'm starving. She's like, you're not starving, just be quiet, right? Just imagine for a moment if we really were hungry. We were in our home and we have to go out of our home because there is literally no food in our home. And we're hungry. And we hear of a place down the road that's around 20 minutes away and we will do whatever we need to do because they've got food there. Again, this has never been my experience. But imagine if you really were hungry. What you would do when you get to that place 20 minutes down the road and they say, okay, can we have your name? It's going to be about 20 minutes till you eat. Imagine really, I've been blessed to be able to be in places where people were hungry. I mean really hungry. The looks on their faces, one of fear, concern, dread. I was at a place one time they said that they knew that we had, the people who were hosting us knew that we had some granola bars and stuff in our bag and they said make sure that the people don't see that because they're hungry. I've never been hungry. I also had an occasion one time in Africa and we were celebrating Mass and it was just this beautiful experience of kind of out in the field. It was in Kenya and people, some of the people that were there at this liturgy had walked five, six, seven, eight hours to be able to get there. Mass was at 10 in the morning. They got up in the middle of the night and walked hours to be able to come to the Eucharist because they were hungry. They didn't have their tidy clothes that they could put on and they didn't have nice pews to sit in. There was a couple of small statues. There was no stained glass windows. It was outdoors because that's all they had. And when it came to the Eucharist, it was one of the most beautiful things that I've ever experienced but also there was a part of it that was troubling. I don't know quite how to reconcile it because when it came time for the Eucharist they gave me a Saboria and they sent me out. I don't know, there was something like 15,000 people and they sent me out to you just kind of go over there and you begin to distribute communion. And there wasn't these nice little lines and they didn't get in line behind each other and they take the one step and the one step and they're just waiting. No, no, no, there wasn't anything like that. These people were hungry. And to the Western sensibilities what took place was scandalous, too strong word, I don't know what to say, but people just began gathering around me. And they were reaching out and they were almost pushing the other person away and they were just reaching out and said, Father, don't forget me, don't forget me. And it wasn't this nice little line, it was me just kind of moving around and people in it, it was crowded and it was hot and it smelled and all of this and people were just coming, reaching out because they were hungry. They were hungry. Don't forget me, Father, as the people crowded around me. And to the outsider looking in and said, well, where's the reverence? The reverence was so beautiful and real and honest and authentic for they were hungry, for the food that endures for eternal life. Do we have that kind of hunger? I love this scripture. The people are following around Jesus and he's speaking about this food that will last for eternal life. And later in the end of this first paragraph, Jesus has obviously multiplied the loaves and he's fed the 5,000 and that's why they're following because they're amazed at these things that he's done and yet at the end of the first paragraph it says, what can you do, right? Moses used to do these things. Well, what can you do and doesn't this speak something about the human condition and the human perspective? So often he's literally just fed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread but that was yesterday, right? What are you going to do for us today, right? What can you do? Moses did this but what can you do? I can give you bread that you would never hunger. You see what they're doing is they're comparing he says our ancestors, Moses but the people didn't understand what was going on even then. If we pay attention to the scriptures, obviously we hear in the first reading today, Moses and the people receive manna. Every morning they wake up from manna just so we know, right? They would collect the manna, they would put it together, mix it with water, fry it in oil. Every morning they get donuts, amen? This is good news, brothers and sisters, right? But if we pay attention in a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months, they're going to actually say, we're sick of this food. We're sick. We wish we were back in slavery again. We are sick of this food that the Lord is miraculously giving to us. Every morning we wake up or we're tired of this, right? We want how fickle we are. We're tired of this. What can you do for us? And what they're doing is they're comparing their says ancestors did this and they're comparing Jesus to Moses and there's obviously some similarities and he is the new Moses that he leads us out of slavery. Brothers and sisters, every one of us is in slavery. We were trapped and there was no way out and the Lord reaches out and he pulls us away from the grasp of the pharaoh and he leads us to the promised land. Amen? If that's not been your experience, brothers and sisters, I pray that you experience that. What it is to be a slave, what it is to be taken by Jesus' hand and leading us to freedom, he is the new Moses. Amen? And he is also the manna and they missed that. They didn't understand that. They simply saw Moses and Jesus says, I am the bread of life come down from heaven. Give us this bread always. He says I am the bread of life and whoever comes to me will never hunger. This is a promise the Lord has made to us is a promise he's made to me that I build my life on. Because so often times I come before the Lord hungry and I come before him frightened and I come before him anxious and I come before him with a million questions and I come and the Lord gives me his bread. He literally gives himself to me and it satisfies all of the other things that are going on slowly begin to melt away because the bread of life that leads me to eternal life. It's not just something in the future every time we receive the Eucharist brothers and sisters we taste eternal life. It's a promise that the Lord has given to us. Amen? That's what we're doing here. But do we really come hungry? Do we really make Jesus the focus of what we're about here? And my concern is the evil one is having a field day in the church recently dividing us and separating us and causing us to look at a million other things all of which are important. But rather than coming to the Eucharist focusing on the bread of life the one who wants to give us life so that we can live eternally we're focusing on the evil one and focusing on so many things. The place that we are supposed to be most united is the place that we find ourselves most divided. We like this music. We like that music. We like this architecture. We like that Cartesian. We like this language. We like that language. And rather than focusing on what is happening here at the Eucharist and being able to receive the body and the blood of Jesus that will lead us to eternal life the evil one is separating us and dividing us. And we're seeing this all across especially on the evening news on who is going to be able to go to communion who is going to be able to receive the Eucharist. I want to be very careful because this needs to be nuanced but I believe brothers and sisters that the church must at times tell individuals that they cannot come to communion but this ought to be met with us with sorrow, with pain and it breaks my heart when people cheer and celebrate that. If we think about what's taking place is when the church is saying that this individual is not able to go to communion because maybe they don't fully understand what is the bread of life and they don't agree with the teachings and there's a disconnect there and we simply say that this individual can't present themselves but that's not to be celebrated. That ought to break my heart because if we believe what we say that this person is now separated from the Eucharist his very salvation is in jeopardy that is not to be received with cheering brothers and sisters it ought to lead us to deeper love for the Eucharist and intercede for that individual and for the many other people that are in mass that may not be so public but find themselves in exactly the same place. My fear is that we really don't understand we're not terribly different. We don't fully understand what it is that manna from heaven the food that leads us to eternal life the food that will give us life eternal so that we never have to get hungry is Jesus himself and by the grace of God and by His mercy we can see this but I believe the Lord wants us to be able to transform us more to be like Him. It's not just and I speak of this often it's not just the bread and the wine that's transformed into His body and blood but it's supposed to be me that I'm every time I come here I'm supposed to become more like Him more loving more merciful more kind more generous more patient that brothers and sisters is what begins to change and transform people's hearts about what we're doing here not the way we're divided not the way we disagree on things rather this Jesus that is inviting whoever scripture says whoever inviting us all to be able to receive the bread of life the manna that comes down from heaven the manna that satisfies this longing heart this hungry heart this frightened heart this broken heart this wounded heart the manna that will satisfy and heal and restore so that we as a body can go out together and help discover and help bring this reality to a population even within our church that doesn't know that doesn't believe that doesn't understand if we don't do this brothers and sisters who will if we don't represent this if we don't experience this if we don't share this my prayer is that in this Eucharist as we come up and hear the Lord calling us and we hear the priest or the deacon hear us say hear him say the body of Christ we say yes yes to this life that will lead us to eternal life yes to this food that will allow us to never ever be hungry Amen