Our life goes on every day. Most of the time, we can cope with our day-to-day experiences in life. Some of these experiences are good and some are bad, but still, most of us find life easy to bear. We are satisfied with our lives, and we are happy most of the time.
We may have problems in life, but we also know that these problems will just pass away, and everything will be back to normal. We sometimes find it hard, especially if the problem is so persistent, but in the end, we always triumph over those problems.
Most of us know how to count the blessings we received and some of us are starting now to share those blessings. These blessings in life can come to us in so many forms but the important thing is that we know how to be grateful to God for those blessings. I know a lot of people who are so inspired by the blessings they received from God, and they are sharing their blessings to the less fortunate ones as their way of saying thanks to God.
Most people are in this category. We simply live our lives in the usual and normal way. We thank God for our blessings, and we ask for His help when we have problems and when we encounter misfortunes in life. But, in general terms, we are joyful that we are in this world trying our best to collaborate with every grace and blessings given to us by God and make it bear fruit.
However, we have some brothers and sisters who cannot be simply contented with what they already have in life. Powerful people would always want more power. Rich individuals would always long to have additional riches and properties. Glamorous and popular people would always aspire to gain even more popularity and sometimes they would allow evil things to invade their life just to reach their goal to be so popular from among the rest. They say, this is because of man’s insatiable desire for power, riches, and fame.
Jesus is offering us His very self as the Bread of Life. We can observe from the lives of people around us; from the rich and the poor, from the powerful and those who are oppressed, from the famous and those who have nothing in life, that indeed, having everything or having nothing in life is not the answer to our quest for that joy in our human existence. Peace and joy always go hand in hand, but they are so elusive in our life. What is it that could still be missing, that which we are trying to look for in our existence? Money, fame, and power are not the answers to this seeming abyss in our life.
St. Augustine is right in saying; “Our hearts are restless, until they rest in you, O God!” Christ is giving us His Body for our Bread of Life, and this is what we are truly looking for and this is the genuine answer to our lifelong questions. Accepting the Bread of Life is the only source of our joy, and it can bring us genuine experience of peace and contentment in life. We partake of His Body in every Eucharistic celebration and doing so is a particularly good start in our journey of life. However, there are a lot of challenges that we must face and fight for.
Partaking of the Body of Christ is our food for the journey. The challenge is for us to make alive His real presence in us by doing His will. The goal is for us to be able to immerse our life with the heart of Jesus. He is our nourishment both for our body and soul and His presence in us becomes our power, so we can make His presence be seen by the way we relate with one another. It will be the power which will make us strong to be able to forgive the unforgivable and to love the unlovable. It will prompt us to do what is good for our brothers and sisters and it is also the power which will transform our whole society from a culture of death and deceit to a culture of life, a culture of faith, hope and charity.
We must try to possess that Joy in Life and we can only achieve that by partaking of the Bread of Life and to accept the challenge to pattern our life to that of the Giver of Life, Jesus Christ. In doing so, we are assured that we will not face death and, on the contrary, we will have life to its fullness, in eternity with the author of life!