Just as the trees growing alongside the river of the water of life provide both food and medicine, nourishment and healing, so the Eucharist which draws its life from the stream of living water flowing from the pierced side of Christ (as from the temple) is also both food and medicine, nourishment and healing. However, this heavenly food (of the Eucharist) is not merely for sustaining physical life, and is more accurately understood as the food of pilgrims sustaining us on the long and arduous journey home to the Father’s House. But because we are wounded and sickly pilgrims, the Eucharist is not only food but also medicine slowly but surely curing us and freeing us—like the cripple in the gospel—from the infirmities that slow our pilgrim way. However, if the Eucharist is to serve as medicine it must be received into hearts keenly aware of their infirmities and desirous of the healing Christ offers. Lent is that graced time we are given to become more keenly aware of our spiritual infirmities so that in receiving Christ we may be increasingly healed and tread more freely and speedily on our pilgrim way. To the degree that we have grown careless and have lost some of our Lenten fervor, let us pray for the grace to recommit ourselves to the time of grace as the great feast of Easter draws ever closer.
Leave a Reply