What is this food?

"My Father gives you the true bread from heaven." (John 6: 32).

Jesus and His followers are having an interesting conversation about the Bread of life.  First, what is this Bread of life? Answer:  "For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  (John 6: 33).

We know from Isaiah 25: 1 that every plan of God in salvation history is conceived "long ago." Nothing is improvised. The Eucharist is prefigured in today's first Reading from Exodus 16.
"What is this?" the people asked Moses. “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat." (Exodus 16: 15).

The manna the Lord provided the people in the desert was to be the grandfather of the Eucharist in the fullness of time.  The Israelites greeted the manna initially with scorn, "They spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!" (Numbers 21: 5).

Today some Christians sadly treat the Holy Eucharist with gross misinterpretation and levity.

"Brothers and sisters, I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds;  darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart." (Ephesians 4: 17 - 18).

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