This year we celebrate the Body and Blood of the Lord while some countries are struggling to get out of the lockdown caused by the pandemic, while others are still subjected to severe precautionary measures. For many this has meant, and for others it is still signifying the impossibility of community celebrations of the Eucharist. The people of God lacked the “living bread, come down from heaven”, on which the evangelist John invites us to meditate, but also the other sign, remembered by Paul to the Corinthians: the fact that, “since there is only one bread, we are, although many, one body: in fact we all participate in the one bread ». “The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist requires the real presence of the faithful around the altar and the real presence of Christians in society” (T. Halik). As Deuteronomy reminds us, that in the desert is a test journey, through which the Lord tests what we have in our hearts. The desert that we have lived or we are experiencing can bring out what we really keep in our heart and how it allows itself to be transformed by the living bread that is Christ. When the sign is missing, the fruit it has generated must shine: the charity that makes us, although many, a single body; the charity that makes us be present in history with a coherent testimony of mercy, compassion, justice, peace.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey