So many good people spend most of their lives working to put food on the table to nourish themselves and their families. Fr. Roger J. Landry writes that we all know how important that is, but Jesus is saying that as hard as we work to fulfill that duty of love, we must work much harder for the food that He will give us, the food of eternal life. What is that food that God puts on the table? What is that nourishment of eternal life? If most people spend forty hours a week or more, sometimes working two or three jobs for perishables, what is the imperishable nutrition for which Jesus tells us we should labor even more strenuously? But the main point for us is not simply to know what is the imperishable nourishment for which we should be striving but actually to live for it, to labor for it. Many Catholics, just like the first-century Jews, spend more of their time hungering and working for hamburgers and french fries, for pancakes and sausages, for salads and sweets, than we do for Jesus’ Word, will, and flesh and blood – these are the truly imperishable things. We encounter all of these attributes at Mass. We begin with God’s Word, we make an act of faith with regard to it, we unite ourselves with God’s will and “do this in memory of [Him]” and then have the incredible privilege of receiving the Word made Flesh, God’s daily spiritual manna, in the Eucharist. Becoming one body with Christ in the Eucharist is meant to help us become one with his will and faithfully accomplish it in the world, as we, united with Christ our head, become his hands, feet, heart, and his mouth in the world. That is what the risen life of a Christian in union with Risen Jesus is all about.