And they glorified the God of Israel

Is 25,6-10a; Ps 22,1-6; Mt 15,29-37.
5 DECEMBER

Man by nature is obliged to feed on God, to “eat” Him, in order to live. While every other element of creation is fed by nourishing itself with creation, man must, if he wants to live, eat his God and feed on him. If man does not eat his God, he will never return to his true life. But how do we eat God? The first nourishment is his Word. By eating the Word, one eats the will of God. Man begins to live with the will of his Lord and his God. From the beginning man was tempted to eat another will, that of the serpent. He ate it. It was death.

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made. The serpent asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” The woman answered the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.'” But the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves (Gen 3,1-7).

From this moment, eating and feeding on Satan’s will, man can only proceed from death to death. Whoever eats the will of the devil daily cannot walk towards life. It is urgent to return to eating the will of God. In his benevolence the Father has sent his Son to make us eat his will. He obeys this eternal command, giving us the Word of the Father in all its purity and beauty, completeness and fullness. In the Word of Jesus there is the whole life of the Father. That the Word produces fruits of life, all the miracles performed by Jesus attest to it. People saw life return and praised the God of Israel. But the gift of the Word is not enough. It is necessary to eat “substantially, really and essentially God”, for man to be able to live the whole will of God, that is the whole life of God. He eats the Word, eats God and lives the whole life of God. The multiplication of the loaves is the sign of the other bread, of the bread of God, of the Bread God, which the disciples will give to the world.

Moving on from there Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, went up on the mountain, and sat down there. Great crowds came to him, having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others. They placed them at his feet, and he cured them. The crowds were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the deformed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind able to see, and they glorified the God of Israel. Jesus summoned his disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, for they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.” The disciples said to him, “Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place to satisfy such a crowd?” Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” “Seven,” they replied, “and a few fish.” He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, gave thanks, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over – seven baskets full.

Word and Eucharist are the complete nourishment. In the Word, by welcoming it in the truth of the Holy Spirit, man eats God’s will, so that he may become God’s will in the world. The will of God must not be found only in the Gospel, but also and above all in the disciple of Jesus who lives of the Word and for the Word. The Word is without any power. It is urgent to eat God in his eternal substance. We eat him, taking on the body of Christ in its substance, essence, reality and truth. In the body of Christ one eats the father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. By eating God one lives for him. One cannot eat God in his essence if he does not eat God in his will. Will and essence are one nourishment. Eating the divine essence without eating his will is eating the body of Jesus vainly and often also in a sacrilegious way.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints help us to eat God to live all the will of God.