The first reading today for the sacred Liturgy of 18th Sunday Through the Church Year, reveals the pouring out from heaven of manna for the people of Israel. The manna, you will recall, is an Old Testament type for what is revealed by Jesus in the feeding narratives and then as the Holy Eucharist. A central image of Jesus in the Gospel of St. John (John 6:24-35) is that He is the Bread of Life; later we speak of this as the heavenly banquet, the spiritual food for eternal life, as a holy sacrament. Christians believe the OT typology is a direct prefiguring of what is revealed in the NT narratives where we read of Christ’s multiplications of bread, signs of Eucharist (Thanksgiving, of heavenly food on earth), of Jesus Christ being the Bread of Life.
Saint Cyril of Alexandria teaches us that “In effect, Jesus is saying ‘I am the bread of life’, not bodily bread, which merely eliminates the physical suffering brought on by hunger, but rather that bread that refashions the entire living being to eternal life. The human being, who had been created for eternal life, is now given power over death.”
The good news here is that God, our Provident Father, provides for us in varied ways: He nourishes us and gives us the medicine of immortality.
The image is a striking one: it is a medieval illumination from the Morgan Bible called “Give Us This Day.” Indeed, may we worthily received the gift of the Bread of Life for our salvation.