October 2020 - First Friday Holy Hour - Bread of Angels

 

After witnessing the Eucharistic Miracle in Bolsena Italy, the Pope tasked one of the well-known theologians of his day, the saintly domnican friar Thomas Aquinas, with composing the orations for a new feast in honor of the Body and Blood of Christ—the feast of Corpus Christi.

In addition to composing the beautiful hymn, the pange lingua, whose last verses we sing at benediction, "Tantum Ergo Sacramentum", St. Thomas composed for Corpus Christi a second hymn titled “Sacris solemniis” --on this sacred solemnity. Thanks to Mozart a few centuries later, we are particularly familiar with the last two stanzas of the sacris solemniis, which begins “panis angelicus fit panis hominum” the bread of angels is made into bread for men.

As we gather for eucharistic adoration on this feast of the holy angels, this evening, I thought I would reflect on that beautiful phrase “panis angelicus” so that perhaps we could love and appreciate the Eucharist as the angels do. Why does the great angelic doctor, Thomas Aquinas, refer to the Eucharist as the bread of angels?

Well the phrase “bread of angels” is first found in scripture in the 78^th Psalm: “God rained manna upon them for food; grain from heaven he gave them. Man ate the bread of the angels; food he sent in abundance.” While making their way to the promised land, God fed the Israelites with manna. The manna would appear daily, as a gift from heaven. It was believed that God used angels to place the manna every day, so it was rightly called the bread of angels.

The Lord takes up similar language in the bread of life discourse, teaching how he would feed the Church with the true bread from heaven in the Sacrament of his flesh and blood. “I Am the true bread that came down from heaven.” That daily manna in the desert was therefore a foreshadowing of the true bread of angels, Christ himself, who feeds the Church daily with his body and blood as we make our way to heaven.

Christ feeds us with his body and blood, so that our earthly journey may end in his presence in heaven. In the 4^th century, St. Augustine writes, so that man could come to behold  the vision of God the Lord of the angels became man, that we may partake of the bread of angels in heaven.

Thomas Aquinas expounded upon this idea in his Summa Theologica. The Eucharist can be called the bread of angels, for in a sense the angels feed on Christ. They do not physically consume Christ, as they do not have physical bodies. Rather they consume him spiritually, by beholding him, adoring him and worshiping him. 

We humans, on the other hand, partake of Christ, the Bread of Angels, according to our human nature, by receiving him under the sacramental species.

And yet, when we kneel in adoration of Christ in the Eucharist we are able to share in an angelic experience of Christ. We are really and truly side by side with the angels this evening. We worship him, we adore him along with the angels. 

We do so, imperfectly. So, it is quite fitting for us, on this feast of the holy angels, to ask your own guardian angel this evening to enflame in your heart the same love that burns in his angelic heart. Ask your guardian angel to help him to contemplate Christ on earth, that you may come to behold him face to face in heaven, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.