The work of human hands is our work of thanksgiving

Every day on my way home from work my commute takes me past the towering grain elevators of Vancouver’s North Shore. 

As I ride my bicycle alongside the miles and miles of grain cars queued in the railyard, their grain ready to be shipped across the seas to become bread for the world, I think of the beautiful words spoken at Mass during the preparation of the gifts:

“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life.”

During Mass, our focus quite rightly is not upon the material elements of the bread and wine themselves but on the action of Christ, through whose word the bread and wine become his own body and blood. But my new commute route, which I started earlier in the summer after beginning work in the industrial district of the North Shore, has reminded me that even though we sometimes refer to them in theology as “accidents,” the bread and the wine, and the human work that goes into preparing them, are not merely accidental to our celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy.

Like most of the things that we use in everyday life, we probably don’t think too often about where the bread and wine that we use at Mass come from. We just take for granted that they’re there.

The prayers of the Mass, such as the beautiful prayers of the preparation of the Gifts, go back all the way to the Jewish meal tradition in which Jesus himself was formed. They’re meant to remind us that precisely nothing in this world or in our lives is “just there.” They are gifts from God.

In God’s wisdom, we as human beings are not passive recipients of these gifts. These gifts, in order to be received in their fullness, need to be “prepared” through the co-operative effort of human work. This is true of everything, from the bread that we break upon the kitchen table and the Eucharistic table, to the great gifts of knowledge and culture essential to the flourishing of a truly human society. 

The exact process by which bread reaches our homes and churches has obviously evolved since Jesus’ time. Sowing and reaping by hand has been largely replaced by industrial agriculture. In order to plant and gather what is necessary to sustain the billions of people who live on our planet, the work of human hands must be aided by complex machines. Locomotives and railcars have replaced livestock and wagons to carry grain to market. Even the manufacture of most of the Eucharistic bread that is delivered to parish sacristies for use at Mass now likely takes place in industrial bakeries rather than in hand-fired ovens.

 But none of this, I believe, is an aberration. The bread that we offer to God each Mass remains gift: “the fruit of the earth and work of human hands.” In fact, I think there is a certain beauty in the fact that heavy industry is now involved in the manufacture of the bread we offer at Eucharist. For everything that is involved in “the work of human hands” that prepares the bread ultimately gets taken up in the sacrifice of Christ and incorporated into the Body of Christ. Which means that in the final analysis there is no sphere of human activity that is not touched by the saving grace of God made present to us in the Eucharist. “Nothing that is genuinely human is foreign” to the Eucharistic table, as the Second Vatican Council so beautifully teaches. On the surface, the hum and din of concrete grain elevators and clanging railway cars may seem quite far removed for the peaceful serenity represented by the altar and Communion rail, but in fact, they are as much part of the preparation of the gifts as the careful procession of the bread and wine up the nave of the church. 

This is true of everything we use in our daily lives, and more importantly, of everything we ourselves are. If we were to reflect upon all the human hands involved in the manufacture of the things we use on a daily basis, and all the human hearts involved in the formation of who we have come to be as persons, then our proper response should be to “lift up our hearts” to the Lord in gratitude.

As we break bread together in our churches and in our homes this Thanksgiving, may our fellowship with each other and with God nourish us to undertake the work that the Lord has entrusted to each of our fragile human hands each day. May we ask for and receive with gratitude the grace that brings our work to completion, so that we ourselves may become the body of Christ, blessed, broken, and shared for the life of the world.

Thank you to Msgr. Kevin Irwin at the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, and Father Chris Beretta, OSFS, at Salesianum School, Wilmington, Del., for providing inspiration for this piece. 

Joseph McDaniel is a parishioner at Christ the Redeemer in West Vancouver.