Wednesday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 21, 2021

Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15

The children of Israel set out from Elim, and came into the desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. Here in the desert the whole assembly of the children of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The children of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!”  Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will now rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion; thus will I test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not. On the sixth day, however, when they prepare what they bring in, let it be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”  Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the whole congregation of the children of Israel: Present yourselves before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.” When Aaron announced this to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, they turned toward the desert, and lo, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud! The Lord spoke to Moses and said, “I have heard the grumbling of the children of Israel. Tell them: In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread, so that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God.”  In the evening quail came up and covered the camp. In the morning a dew lay all about the camp, and when the dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert were fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground. On seeing it, the children of Israel asked one another, “What is this?” for they did not know what it was. But Moses told them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.”

In the first reading for today’s Mass we hear the story of how God fed the Hebrews in the desert.  Reading this account carefully helps us to understand better the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood, the Holy Eucharist, for Jesus taught that the manna God gave the Hebrews was a sign of the true Food with which he would feed those who belonged to him (cf. John 6, 49-50).

First, we note that Moses had led the Hebrews away from slavery in Egypt.  This is a sign of Baptism, which forgives all sin — taking a person from Satan’s domain — and makes him an adopted child of God.  Now, not long after their departure from Egypt, the people’s food stocks are dwindling.  They experience hunger and do not know what they are going to eat.  Responding to this, the Lord tells Moses, “I will now rain down bread from heaven for you.”  God declares that he himself will feed them.  He allows them to suffer from hunger in the desert in order for them to realize their total dependence on him for their sustenance.  Following Baptism, the new Christian experiences a spiritual hunger that cannot be satisfied by any earthly food.  In the Eastern Churches, with babies, and in the West, with adults, those receiving Baptism are fed the Holy Eucharist later during that Mass.  “Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion.”  The new Manna is the Holy Eucharist which we ought to receive on a daily basis when we can.  Otherwise, we can understand our waiting a week between Masses to receive the Body of our Lord as a time of preparation.  “Present yourselves before the Lord!”  This is the summons to Holy Mass.  The Lord has heard our earnest prayers — our “grumbling” — and now he will feed us.  “Lo, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud!”  That is, the Son of God was made man: “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory” (John 1, 14).  “You shall have your fill of bread, so that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God.”  Just as it is necessary to have faith in order to receive the Body of the Lord, its reception increases our faith and enables us to know more deeply that he is our God.  “In the evening quail came up and covered the camp.”  Quail feed on insects and seeds, and a certain kind of quail abounded in North Africa along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.  They seem causative in some way of the appearance of the manna.  We can understand the quail here as priests who confect the Sacrament, turning bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus.  Birds, such as quail, go between the sky and the earth, and in a similar way, the prayers of priests bring God from heaven to earth in the consecrations at Mass.  The “dew” signifies the grace of God by which the transubstantiation of the bread and wine takes place.

“The children of Israel asked one another, ‘What is this?’ for they did not know what it was.”  Literally, the Hebrew word mah means “what”, and the nah is an enclitic that indicates that a question is being asked.  The Hebrews did not know what it was, and today, the mystery of the Body of Christ is beyond our comprehension.  We can study the doctrine and we can pray before the Blessed Sacrament, but he will always be greater than we can imagine.  He will always take our breath away.  The manna given to the Hebrews is itself difficult to understand. As we read a little further down, “And the children of Israel . . . gathered, one more, another less. And they measured by the measure of a gomor: neither had he more that had gathered more; nor did he find less that had provided less” (Exodus 16, 17-18).  

“This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.”  We rejoice that God himself feeds us, and not just any food, but the Body and Blood of his Son, the very Bread of heaven.  Let us prepare ourselves properly for it, eat it with devotion, and give thanks to God, who is so good to us.