THROUGH UNTRUE

Cooking was once a laborious task confined to the kitchen. Today it has evolved into a highly profitable, informative, and entertaining spectacle thanks to television and YouTube. Celebrity chefs and food experts have transformed us from mere eaters to food watchers. As we eagerly observe their intricate culinary techniques, we forget the difference between real food and its audio-visual representation. In many ways, this development is positive. Meticulously crafted culinary programs serve to counterbalance the overwhelming presence of advertisements promoting fast food and junk food. Advertisers have conditioned us to think that pre-packaged, ready-to-eat, and microwaveable food is superior to our own homemade creations. Food quality has shifted from nutritional value to efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and speed. Eating, as an essential human activity, is not just feeding. It holds meaningful gestures that elevate it to the realm of ritual. When we ritualize an activity, it transcends mere functionality and practicality. We etch it in our memory, thereby preventing it from becoming a forgettable occurrence. This is impossible if we simply devour hotdogs while rushing to work, eat spaghetti while surfing the internet, or wolf down a sandwich while slumped on the couch watching television. If we approach eating with greater reverence, we can grasp important life lessons. Have you ever considered that everything we consume originates from a living being that perished before we marinated, seasoned, boiled, barbecued, fried, steamed, or baked it? Speed eating dishonors both the human effort invested in its preparation and erases the memory of those creatures that died to keep us alive. In today's gospel reading, on the solemn Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Jesus invested food with a sublime significance by elevating it into a sacrament of His self-sacrificial love for us. In the gospel reading, Jesus states, "For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. Whoever consumes my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever eats this food will live forever" (John 6:55-58). The notion that Jesus offered himself as food scandalized the Jews. They could not forgive Jesus for reducing the God whom they worshipped as an all-powerful and transcendent deity to something as ordinary as bread and wine. However, Jesus was simply demonstrating how far and how low God would go to reveal His love for us. God did not stop at becoming visible, audible, and credible; He even became edible! By giving Himself to us as food, He reminds us how life can emerge from death, the phoenix from the ashes, and eternity from time. Jesus died so we can live. If it is true that we become what we eat, then every time we partake of His Body and Blood, Jesus challenges us to become another Eucharist: A body given and blood shed for others. He wants us, not just to live, but to be life-giving as well.