The Israelites on their wilderness journey discovered something new, something they didn’t recognize, something whose purpose they didn’t understand. Because we know the end of the story, we know that it was manna, the “bread from heaven,” that God provided for their sustenance. For the Israelites, it was strange, unexpected. “What is it?” they asked. “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat,” Moses told them. It didn’t look like any bread they had ever seen so it took them awhile to appreciate the munificence of God’s saving grace.

God’s sustaining presence continues to be manifested in our lives in ways we too often still don’t recognize. It may seem strange, new, different, unlike anything we have experienced before. We may not know how to handle it at first. It may take awhile to get used to living with the manna God provides. And when we do, we will likely find that our journey turns a corner, and we are confronted with a new wilderness where we see no bread from heaven awaiting us. The manna is there, but we may need help in recognizing this new bread from heaven. We may need a Moses to open our eyes, to identify the manna for us, to show us how God intends it to feed us as we go on our way. And if and when we do, God provides that one as well, someone who knows and trusts the sustaining hand of God and who is willing to companion us through the wilderness.

Over and over, just as the Lord did for the Israelites, God provides our daily bread, exactly what we need to feed us for the task at hand, to strengthen and encourage us for the ministry to which we are called. If, like Saul, we need a Barnabus to reach out to us and get us started in our vocation, our Barnabus shows up. If we need a prophet to point the way, the prophet comes. If we need an evangelist, a teacher, a healer, a comforter, God inspires that one to be there for us. That is the story of our salvation history, the mystery of God’s love at work in the world.

When we wonder, “What is it?” we need only to hear the words of the priest putting the host into our outstretched hands, “The body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”