A few years ago I was on a trip through Europe and one of the stops was Munich, Germany. Not far from Munich is the little town of Dachau. In 1933 the Nazis took over Germany and built a concentration camp just outside of Dachau. During the next 12 years nearly one quarter of a million prisoners were confined there. Official records certify that over 30,000 of these prisoners were cruelly executed at Dachau. Today, tourists return to Dachau in great numbers. You see them walking prayerfully around the grounds of the camp. You see them moving slowly through the museum that has been built there. Above all, you see them praying silently in one of the camp’s several chapels.

In 1986, a priest by the name of Fr. Haase paid a visit to Dachau and after returning to the United States he wrote a book. He writes, “One Wednesday afternoon in June 1986, I walked the grounds of Dachau concentration camp…I remember pausing to pray at the spot where Barracks 26 once stood. It as the prison dormitory that housed so many Roman Catholics…Every day Catholic prisoners at Dachau got one meal, which consisted of a chunk of bread the size of a dinner roll and a cup of watered-down soup. But each day, one Catholic prisoner would voluntarily sacrifice his or her meager bread ration for the celebration of Mass. That chunk of bread would be consecrated by a priest and then secretly passed around as communion for prisoners.”

We can only imagine what went on in the minds and hearts of those Catholic prisoners as they shared in what would be for them their “Last Supper.” And we can only imagine what went on in the mind and heart of a prisoner who had just sacrificed his ration of bread - the only meal he would have that day - to make the Mass possible for the rest of the prisoners. And finally, we can only imagine what went on in the minds and hearts of all the prisoners as they listened to these words of Jesus during the reading of the Gospel: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Most of us receive Eucharist each time we go to Mass. We receive it without having to give up our only meal like a prisoner at Dachau. Actually Eucharist is very convenient and available to us all the time. So easy and convenient that it is possible that we receive Eucharist routinely and unthinkingly. The scriptures these past few weeks have created an opportunity for each of us to reflect on the power of the Eucharist in our lives…to recognize what is happening here Sunday after Sunday as we receive Eucharist - this embrace of God. With this in mind, I would like to make a suggestion that I personally find helpful.

As you walk down the aisle to receive the Eucharist, try to focus your mind and heart on what you are about to do. You are NOT going to meet the president of the United States, the Pope or some famous celebrity. You are going to meet personally with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. When you hear the words, “The Body of Christ” try to realize what you are doing when you say, “Amen.” You are saying, “I believe this is the Christ born in a cave outside of Bethlehem, the Christ who restored health to the sick, sight to the blind. The same Christ who fed the hungry. The same Christ who was nailed to the cross and who was raised from the dead.

Let us hope that the eating and drinking we do at the Eucharist today will jar our memories so that we remember who we are taking into ourselves in this Eucharist and act on Jesus’ teachings of unconditional love and forgiveness and compassionate justice. We eat and drink because we believe that Christ is the living bread from heaven. Others should see that faith enfleshed in our words and actions. We cannot live Jesus’ life without eating and drinking from the table Jesus has set for us - his body and blood. So, let us, the hungry, approach the table Wisdom has set for us - the table where God’s very life mingles with our lives so that our lives can become one with God’s. Jesus makes that promise to us: eating his flesh and drinking his blood gives us eternal life…NOW.