The Israelites are quite like us. They intend to offer a response that is steadfast but their own humanity, under the siege of sin, fails them.

Through us, as through the Virgin, Christ intends to touch and transform creation, to bless it and to make it holy.

Through the mystery of this sacrament Jesus reveals something inherent about himself and about our life in him.

Jesus does not magically feed us. He feeds us through fellowship, through the identity and love that flow from it.

St. Thomas teaches that a brute animal, who might consume the body and blood of Christ, would not receive Holy Communion, because sacraments are ordered towards faith.

Jesus does not disdain the ignorant and the sinful. No, he sees, he pities and he engages.