15th Wednesday of Ordinary time
In the early Jewish work Sh’mot Rabba, it is written, “As the atmosphere encircles the earth, so does God comprehend the world, and there is no place where His Majesty is not. As it is said in the Midrash: ‘Why did God reveal himself to Moses in a bush of thorns? In order to make manifest that there is no place where His radiance is not; it may even be found in a thicket of thorns’”.
Much later, the Kobriner rebbe turned to his Hasidim and said: “Do you know where God is?” He took a piece of bread, showed it to them all, and continued: “God is in this piece of bread. Without the Lord’s manifestation of his power in all nature, this piece of bread would have no existence”.
Do you know what the Lord of heaven and earth has revealed to the childlike? That the Light of the world can be present in a burning bush. Do you know where the body of Jesus is? In every piece of consecrated bread at Mass. Without the words of consecration, we could not obey his command to take the bread and eat of his Body.
The bush is a sacrament, and the bread is a sacrament. As the old hymn had it:
O Sacrament most holy,
O Sacrament divine,
All praise and all thanksgiving
Be every moment Thine!
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