The Eucharist is Our Sustenance for the Journey

When a Catholic is on death’s door, the last sacrament one receives is not Extreme Unction. It is the Eucharist (generally administered as an element of Last Rites). Holy Communion at that moment even has a special name: Viaticum, roughly translated, food for the journey. 

Extreme Unction wipes out sin and sin’s residue from the soul of the dying person; it removes the obstacles to grace in the final moments, which is essential for the soul’s freedom to make that final journey.

The Eucharist, however, does much more: it provides the inner strength needed for the soul to cross the divide from this life to the next. It is the same spiritual bread partaken of by the angels who come to escort the person over that threshold. 

This Food is not the kind of food that nourishes the body as it is transformed by our digestive systems. It actually transforms us into Itself and has the ability to make us fully alive even while our bodies lie prostrate on the earth. 

In the Bread of Life Discourse of John’s Gospel, Jesus had to remind His disciples of this fact: 

“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” (John 6:51). 

How casually men and women take their relationship with their Eucharistic Lord! Shouldn’t we be running to Church for this Food every Sunday – every day! – as starving men seeking the Source of life?

Indeed, it is not just at the final moments of life that we need this heavenly bread. We need His Food for everything. 

We are like the Prophet Elijah, worn out from the long journey of this world, battered down by the forces of evil that drain life from us, discouraged by the faithlessness of our generation. “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers,” (1 Kings 19:4) lamented Elijah. 

How easy it is to give up when confronted with the challenges of our world. How tempting it is to lie down under a broom tree like the prophet or take the path of least resistance like the apostles and fall into the depressed slumber of denial in Gethsemane. 

Thankfully, God never gives up on us. 

As was the case with Elijah, He often sends His angels to strengthen us for our tasks. “Get up and eat,” ordered God’s angel, “else the journey will be too long for you!” (1 Kings 19:5). 

We, however, have an even greater privilege than being visited by an angel. The very Bread of Life Himself comes to us! He hasn’t left the task of feeding us to those blessed spirits. 

The holy Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney, puts our Eucharistic sustenance in the proper perspective: 

All the good works in the world are not equal to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because they are the works of men; but the Mass is the work of God.

Yes, the Christian journey is too long and difficult to go it alone. The Eucharist is Christ Himself, the Bread of Life come down from heaven. And how blessed we are to receive Him who is our Viaticum, our sustenance for the journey, both in this life and into the next.

Your friend in Christ,

Thomas J McKenna
http://www.catholicaction.org/