Wonder Bread

Wonder Bread helps build strong bodies twelve ways.

That’s an ad slogan that goes all the way back to the 1950s.

The TV ad showed a diagram of building blocks labeled with the bread's 12 benefits.

As a kid I really liked Wonder Bread; (actually, I still do.)

Especially with a little Miracle Whip and American cheese and some bologna.

Today some people shun highly processed foods like Wonder Bread.

(Not to mention Miracle Whip and American cheese and bologna.)

They say we eat too many airy, empty calories.

They think the heavy, 12-grain breads are better.

Those Wonder Bread building blocks came to mind as I thought of the temple stones.

And Jesus’ words.

The days will come when there will not be left one stone upon another.

Those stone building blocks might have been carefully joined together.

But they were destined to be broken apart.

Worldly material things just don’t last.

At another time, Jesus spoke of rebuilding the temple in three days.

Then, he was using the temple as a symbol for his body.

Today, he’s talking more about the actual temple building, and other material things.

But that symbolic link to his body is probably what triggered my Wonder Bread memory.

And of course, the body, too, is just a material thing.

And it will break down.

Some of us are breaking down already.

(Actually all of us are, it’s just more noticeable for some of us.)

But there’s Good News regarding our material bodies.

And its good news that comes along with the end times.

Times that we generally have a tendency to dread.

Angels harvesting the earth with their sickles.
The earthquakes and plagues and famines and wars, and false prophets.

And awesome sights and mighty signs from the sky.

Most likely we'll all have gone through our own end times,

Long before the world goes though its.

Our souls will have long left our dead, material bodies.

And it's the final end times that will bring along the restoration of our bodies.

They’ll be reunited with our spirits.

We’ll be whole human beings again.

Body and soul joined together.

But not these old worldly material, bodies we have today.

New, glorified bodies like Jesus’ own.

Like the one he rebuilt in three days.

And our glorified bodies won’t have been built up by Miracle Whip and Wonder Bread.

But by the miracle of the true Wonder Bread.

The bread that is offered from this altar every day.

Tuesday, 34th Week of  Ordinary Time

Lk 21:5-11      Read this Scripture @usccb.org