On a beautiful spring Sunday at Mass, I was distributing Eucharist to a long line of eager worshippers.  A mother approached with a little girl squirming in her arms, and as I gave her Communion, I blessed the child.

When the child realized I wasn't giving her Eucharist she shouted: "I want a cookie too!"  I smiled softly, as she went away in tears.  She wanted Jesus.  To her eyes, Jesus was something good and sweet.

May and June are months filled with children receiving their first Holy Communion and tasting the sweetness of Jesus and His message.  The priest looks at each child and says the familiar words: the “Body of Christ” and with a shyness filled with joy each child responds: “Amen.”

Then Jesus, our God and Savior, fills their hearts and lives in a new and profound way.  The whole Church prays that each child will love Jesus and see His presence as a kind of cookie who fills their lives with sweetness when the sun shines or when dark clouds obscure His goodness.  The whole Church wants everyone to embrace this loving God on this special day and every day until we all rest in His presence forever. 

The Church, the living body of Christ, adds the nourishment of their prayers to the food that Jesus is--to strengthen them for life’s difficult moments and to add sweetness for the stale times and gratefulness for the joyous days.

Jesus is the delicious and uplifting food of God’s abundant love given generously to each of us.  No wonder that little child filled with tears.  How could any of us live without the meaningful and endless gift of Eucharist?

St. Francis de Sales loved the Eucharist.  He saw it as “dew from heaven,” which “sweetens” daily living. He wrote:

Our hearts, no matter how frail and weak, are preserved from sin when conserved with the sugar and honey of the body of the Son of God.

Jesus adds His own comments in John 6:51:

“I am the living bread come down from heaven.  If anyone eats this bread he shall live forever, the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Maybe, just maybe, that little girl knew exactly what she needed when she sought that “cookie” so badly. Do we?