Memorial of Saint John Vianney, Priest

 Lectionary: 407

"Would that we had meat for food!
We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt,
and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.
But now we are famished;
we see nothing before us but this manna."

Some intrepid nutritionists have observed that people who eat the same food on a weekly, rotating cycle -- as in some care facilities and nursing homes - don't eat as much. Although nutritious and enough, their food is neither interesting nor entertaining. I suggested that once in our friary chapter, and was met with resounding silence. 

The escaped slaves in the desert were bored with their diet of manna despite its abundance and nutritional value. 

Catholics celebrate the Mass daily and weekly year after year, but are nonetheless apt to go in search of more interesting food. In Carey, where the friars maintain a shrine to Our Lady of Consolation, a pilgrim once asked me if she could take the Blessed Sacrament home to her mother in Detroit. 
"Doesn't she have the Sacrament brought to her at home?" I asked.
"Yes, but she wants it from this special place!" she replied. 
I could not, in conscience, give her that particular favor. We offered unlimited amounts of free holy water (BYOB), and the largest religious goods store in Ohio. That novelty should satisfy the pious request. 

The Most Blessed Sacrament is an infinitely good gift of our God. Although it is better to receive the Eucharist during the Mass, and we make exceptions for the homebound, there can be no degrees of more or less blessedness in the Eucharist. Switching lines in order to receive the Eucharist from a priest or bishop rather than a Eucharistic Minister is also disrespectful. 

We do not attend the Mass to be entertained or fattened. We come to be nourished, and to adore our God.