Salmon numbers are way up this year.  Millions of the silvered fish have streamed into the fresh rivers of the Pacific Northwest.  In fact, over 30 million sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) have finned and funneled through the Georgia Strait up into mother Fraser.  Relentless and heaven-bound, the sockeye have surged up the Fraser, spilled into the turbulent Thompson, to finally rest, spawn and die in the 12 km long Adams River over 450 km deep in the heart of BC.  Not all make this perilous journey, but millions  of sockeye managed to spawn in the Adams this year.  Thousands of people from all over the world came to stand on the banks of the river and marvel at this dance of life. 

I grew up fishing Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).  Unlike their Pacific cousins, the Atlantic salmon don't necessarily die after spawning.  They can recondition themselves in the freshwater ponds and lakes over the winter and return to the Atlantic Ocean to repeat the migration and spawning pattern several times. 

At the Last Supper, Jesus said to his disciples, "Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you."  Jesus is the ultimate sacrament, the food that gives life.  His body is broken so that we may live.

May we not consider the sockeye from a similar "eucharistic" perspective.  The relentless journey from the cold, northern waters of Alaska to the rivers of BC has one purpose – to breed and to pass on life.  The streams of teaming life are transformed into waters of putrid, decayed fish flesh.  The robust red of vital salmon flesh transforms into mangled cadavers and bleached skeletons.  Along the way, the salmon give themselves as food to humans, black bears, grizzlies, eagles and gulls – and many other creatures who depend on this annual bounty from the sea.  No wonder the sockeye is central to BC iconography. 

Not only do animals and birds benefit, but so do the neighbouring forests.  The nutrients from the decayed salmon actually fertilize the forests.  In trees that have access to salmon carcasses, up to 75% of the nitrogen in the trees may derive from salmon flesh.  The forests have become "salmon forests."

"Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you."  Maybe Jesus Christ is also the Cosmic Christ, truly the paradigm for not only our lives, but for all life.  The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith and the church.  Maybe, just maybe, the eucharist is also the source and summit of the entire world.  Sockeye salmon symbolize that mystery in a most provocative way.