The first reading takes us into the celebration of this solemnity through the figure of Melchizedek who offered bread and wine and to whom Abram gave the tithe of everything. Melchizedek contains the mystery of the authentic man called to live an existential priesthood who knows how to share the struggles and efforts of his brothers. In the Gospel we are shown how the right level of humanization is evident from the ability to overcome one’s relationship with food as a simple and primary satisfaction of a need necessary for survival to pass to the will and the joy of sharing: Make them sit in groups…. In this frame of aptitude for sharing, the Lord Jesus multiplies the bread with surplus just as authentic sharing always exceeds, so they advanced twelve baskets. Living the gestures of the Eucharist in memory of Christ’s Easter puts us on an ever new path of communion and sharing. In the Eucharist we receive the bread of heaven which never ceases to be bread germinated on our earth and wine matured in our cellars, as we always remember at the moment of the offertory. Yet, the bread we receive is a bread that nourishes us and is able to nourish more than us… it nourishes and strengthens the Body of Christ which is the Church. The Eucharist is not a rite reserved for the privileged or exclusively preserved for the last remnant of “pure”, but the banquet that remembers and renews the invitation, offered to all, to sit at the table set by God for all (cf. Is 25).

Commentary by b. Michael David, osb Community of the Koinonia de la Visitation

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey