The Holy Fathers have not only interpreted this bread as material food; they have also seen signified in it the Bread of life, the Holy Eucharist, without which the supernatural life of the soul cannot subsist.
I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that if anyone eats of it he will not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world4. St. John will remember all his life this long discourse of the Lord and the place where he pronounced it: he said these things in Capernaum, in the synagogue.
The realism of these words and those that followed is so strong that it excludes any interpretation in a figurative sense. The manna of the Exodus was the figure of this Bread - Jesus Christ himself - that nourishes Christians on their way to Heaven. Communion is the sacred banquet in which Christ gives Himself. When we receive Communion, we participate in Christ's sacrifice. This is why the Church sings in the Liturgy of the Hours on the feast of Corpus Christi: O sacred banquet in which Christ is our food, the memorial of the Passion is celebrated, the soul is filled with grace and we are given a pledge of future glory
The listeners understood the proper and direct sense of the Lord's words, and so they found it difficult to accept that such a statement could be true. If they had understood it in a figurative sense, it would not have caused them to wonder, nor would there have been any discussion7. 7 So the Jews argued among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?8. For Jesus clearly affirms that his Body and Blood are true food for the soul, a pledge of eternal life and a guarantee of bodily resurrection.
The Lord even uses a stronger expression than mere eating (the original verb could be translated as "to chew "9), thus expressing the realism of Communion: it is a true meal, in which Jesus himself is given to us as food. There is no room for a symbolic interpretation, as if participating in the Eucharist were only a metaphor, and not the actual eating and drinking of the Body and Blood of Christ.
Christ is not in us after communion as a friend is in a friend, through a spiritual presence; he is "truly, really and substantially present" in us. There is in Holy Communion such a close union with Jesus himself that it surpasses all understanding.
When we say: Father, give us this day our daily bread, and think that in all our days we can receive the Bread of life, we should be filled with joy and immense gratitude; it will encourage us to receive communion frequently, and even daily, if possible. For "if the bread is daily, why do you receive it only once a year? Receive every day what is good for you every day, and live in such a way that every day you are worthy to receive it "
Hablar con Dios