From Manna to the Eucharist

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/080519.cfm
Numbers 11:4-15
Matthew 14:13-21

Today’s readings are all about food from God.  The first reading from numbers talks about the manna that the Lord provided to His people as they crossed the desert seeking the Promised Land.  The second reading is how the Lord fed His followers with five loaves and two fish.  This all leads to the ultimate feeding of His followers with His own flesh and blood in the form of bread and wine. 

We start out with the children Israel grousing about how good the food was in Egypt.  They had free fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.  Now, here they have nothing but manna to eat.  They wanted meat!  It’s like they were recalling the good old days with the Egyptians.  That’s right, the very Egyptians that treated them like animals and wanted to kill all the men.  Yes, they wanted to be back with those Egyptians.  

The manna in the book of Numbers is described as something like coriander seed that came down with the dew at night.  This seed was gathered and ground up and baked into a loaf that tasted like cake made with oil.  Don’t bother asking me what that is like because I have no idea.  Exodus, on the other hand, describes raw manna as tasting like wafers made with honey.  Well, complaining had made the Lord angry.  Here he had delivered them from slavery and they are complaining that they don’t like the food and wished they were back in slavery to the Egyptians.  Moses was also upset with the Lord because he is now burdened with a bunch of complainers.  He says to the Lord, where am I going to find the meat they want.  Also, he alone cannot sustain this entire people because it is too heavy a burden for him.  Moses goes on to say that if it continues like this then go ahead and kill him so he no longer has to bear this distress.  It is too bad that the reading stops there because this is where it starts to get interesting.

So, to continue a bit past the reading, the Lord tells Moses to gather 70 elders and lead them to the door of the temple.  There He will take from the spirit in Moses and distribute it to the elders so that they can carry some of the burden and give Moses some relief.  Now this the fun part.  The Lord tells Moses that on the following day the people will have meat.  The Lord has heard them say “Who will give us flesh to eat?  It was well with us in Egypt.”  So, the Lord will give you flesh, not just for one day, but for a month of days, until it exits from their nostrils and until it turns into nausea, because you have slipped away from the Lord and have wept before Him saying “Why did we go forth out of Egypt”.  Moses asks the Lord where this meat will come from to feed 600,000 footmen.  Perhaps the Lord did not realize that they were in the middle of a desert.  The Lord answers in true Arby’s fashion, “We Have the Meat!”

The next day a strong wind came from the Lord and brought quail to every part of the camp.  The people gathered them up and dried the flesh.  They not only just ate the quail but gorged themselves with the meat.  Then the fury of the Lord struck them with a great scourge.  Apparently there were a lot of deaths since they ended up calling the site the Graves of Lust.

Like the reading from numbers, in the gospel of Matthew the Lord again delivers food in a totally unexpected way.  A crowd had followed Jesus on foot to a deserted place.  When Jesus saw the crowd He was moved with pity for them and cured their sick.  Because it was getting late the disciples suggested Jesus dismiss the crowd so that they could go to a nearby village to buy some food.  Jesus told them “there was no need for them to go away but give them food yourselves”.  Just as I would have done, they told Jesus they only had five loaves and two fish.  Jesus told them to bring the fish and loaves to Him.  Jesus took the loaves, said the blessing and broke the loaves.  The disciples distributed the loaves among the crowd.  They all ate until they were satisfied.  When the disciples gathered the fragments there were twelve wicker baskets full.  Again the Lord saw to it that His followers were given the nourishment they needed.

Of course there is a significant difference between the Old Testament reading and the Gospel reading.  In the Old Testament reading the people wanted more even though they had sufficient nourishment with the manna and complained about what they had.  Then they proceeded to gorge themselves with the quail the Lord provided.  In the gospel reading you hear of no complaints.  All the gospel says is they ate until they were satisfied.

Today our Lord continues to feed us with His flesh and blood in the form of bread and wine for our physical and spiritual nourishment.  As in the two previous readings, the Lord delivers physical and spiritual nourishment in a totally unexpected way.  The consecrated Eucharist and Wine are true flesh and true blood of our Lord Jesus.  This is far more miraculous than the manna from heaven, the appearance of quail in the middle of a desert, and feeding five thousand men along with the women and children with five loaves of bread and two fish.  Even though Jesus makes it very clear that unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood you will not have life within you, many Catholics still do not believe.  To help us appreciate the true significance of the Eucharist Jesus has provided miracles to us over the ages.  For example, 1200 years ago a priest in Lanciano, Italy was having doubts about the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  At the consecration the host turned into flesh and the wine turned into blood.  As far as I know, that mass was never finished.  The flesh and blood are still preserved in Lanciano.  A pathologist was brought in to examine the flesh and blood in 1971 and again in 1981.  The flesh was examined and found to be human heart tissue from the myocardium, the part of the heart that pumps blood.  The blood is human blood type AB typical of Mideast origin.  In the 1200 years since the miracle neither the flesh nor the blood have decomposed.  In the mid 1900’s in Buenos Aires a host had been dropped.  The priest placed the host in a chalice of water and secured it in the tabernacle.  The following week the priest was expecting to see the host dissolved.  Instead it had turned into bloody flesh.  A sample was taken of the flesh and blood and examined in New York by a forensic pathologist.  The flesh was found to be tissue from the myocardium of a human heart and the blood was human blood type AB.  The DNA of the blood was compared to that of the blood from Lanciano, Italy and were a match.  I try to bring this up in my mind every time I go to receive the Eucharist and to realize that, when I consume the Eucharist, Jesus is truly entering me and for a few moments I am one with Him just as the apostles were with Him 2000 years ago.

For your viewing pleasure I have placed links below to YouTube regarding these miracles.

Miracle at Lanciano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whbzLYi7cyc

Miracle at Buenos Aires
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIh5hRlbttU