Strengthened by Heavenly Food

Of the three ‘sacraments of initiation’ (Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist), the Eucharist is the only sacrament that can be repeated over and over again.  This is so because we need the heavenly bread for our journey and this is echoed or prefigured in the story of Elijah in the first Book of Kings (19:4-8):

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’ Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

We need the sustenance of the Eucharist and we need it often because nourished by Word and Sacrament we can face the trials of daily living. Dr Marcellion D’Ambrosio puts it very well in the following commentary on Elijah:

So the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, like the meal Elijah received under the broom tree, merely points forward to something even greater, to food that truly satisfies and leads to eternal life. The fulfillment of all these foreshadowings is Jesus’ own flesh and blood, to be eaten sacramentally under the forms of bread and wine, in the Eucharist. This meal will be offered not just to a select few, but to all those sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30) through baptism, making them prophets, kings, and priests of the Lord. They, like the prophet Elijah, will ultimately walk with God in glory, but before that will have a long, arduous journey to make that will require extraordinary stamina.

Catholics believe that yet another prefiguring of the Eucharist that was to be offered throughout the world is contained in the prophecy of Malachi (1:11):

For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.