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You satisfy the hungry heart With gifts of finest wheat, Come give to us, O saving Lord, The bread of life to eat.” This lyric from the beautiful song: “Gift of Finest Wheat” reminds us of the agrarian nature of what Jesus left us to do in His honor each Sunday. The wheat planted, cultivated, harvested and processed--to be baked into hosts. It is the end journey of something so life-giving and special. Every part of the process is imbued with labor and love. It is the product of the farmer and the land, blessed with sun and rain from above. However, non of the labor and the love would have any meaning if it were not brought to the church and blessed by a very special blessing that invokes the power and majesty of Almighty God. The consecration at Mass turns the gift of bread into the Body of Christ. The blessings of the earth now becomes the celestial, sacred nourishment that fulfills our souls. How does this happen? It happens through profoundly simple words pronounced by a priest whose ordination is linked to the upper room of the Last Supper by an unbroken succession of popes that goes back to St. Peter who was given the keys to the Kingdom by Jesus Christ himself. This is why the ordination of a Roman Catholic priest is so profound, and why that priest, any validly ordained Catholic Priest, is so targeted by Satan. Take out the priest, and he takes out the one who brings Jesus—the Bread of Life, the Gift of Finest Wheat. TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU. When the priest pronounces these words of consecration we (priest and congregation) are transported mystically, as it were, to the Last Supper when Jesus proclaimed these words for the first time, and we are taken to Calvary, the hill that Jesus died on, where the liberation of humanity was won, once and for all. My God, to think we do this every Sunday, and often with inattention and distraction. If we only knew the cost of our freedom, we would never be enticed by sin again. Dear Jesus, protect us all and especially yours priests who bring us the simplest of elements—the wheat and the grape—blessed so profoundly, as the source of our freedom and liberation. Keep us free from the tribulations of life. Keep us focused. Keep us holy— striving towards you with every beat of our hearts. May we never forget, or take for granted, the gift of finest wheat that is the source and the strength of our salvation. Amen.