INTRODUCTION
In the world of human needs and continuous hunger for spiritual and material food, Jesus proposes us the bread of life-himself as the only food for sustainance in our journey to meeting God. He draws us to pause awhile in our insatiable lust and the priority we place on perishable material needs to appreciating the lasting food-himself the life-giving bread and the first of all human needs. The food that he gives is meant to strengthen us until we finally reach him. This is how God himself sustained Elijah till he reached Horeb, the mount of the Lord. And the psalmist invites us to taste and see that the Lord who gives us himself is truly good. When we finally taste this food which is the Lord himself, then we will cease to live in bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander and malice and thus begin to walk in love just as Christ. This is St. Paul’s pastoral counselling to the Ephesians.
FIRST READING: 1 Kings 19:4-8
CONTEXT:
After Elijah challenged and defeated and slaughtered the 450 prophets of Baal at mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:20-40), the pagan queen Jezebel (the wife of Ahab the king of Israel) who brought peganism in the household of Israel and instituted the prophets in the service of Baal, out of fury, sought to destroy Elijah. Thus Elijah fled out of fear because his life was threatened by Jezebel; “May the gods bring unnameable ills on me and worse ills too, if by this time tomorrow I have not made your life like one of theirs!” (1 Kings 19:2).
Today’s first reading thus embroiders in thick line Elijah’s frustration and discouragement as he fled for his life. His frustration may have sprung as a result of why he should suffer because of the good he had done, that is eliminating evil from Israel, and yet instead of enjoying peace, his life was threatened. This frustration led him to expect a speedy death as a relief from his suffering while he lay down in exhaustion. But because he needed to reach Horeb where God will recommision him anew as his prophet and to establish a successor after him (1 Kings 19: 9-16), God sent his angel to bring him food to sustain him for the 40 days’ and 40 nights’ journey.
Like Elijah we are often discouraged when we suffer for the good we have done. We are discouraged more still when it seems that the Lord is indifferent to our plight as a result of our faithful service to him. But the passage tells us that the Lord is aware of what we are passing through, and he follows us closely on this journey of many challenges and equally provides for us means of shelter (the broom tree in the desert, source of God’s providence) and sustainance (the food). He comes to meet us with his empowering grace which is capable of transforming our powerlessness and discouragement. We only need to listen to the instruction that he gives (arise and eat) and not be drowned in our discouragement. Elijah listened to the instruction. That is how he regained strength and focus till he reached Horeb, the mount of encounter. To listen to the voice of God is the only conditio sine qua non to reaching our heavenly Horeb. Let us not allow the voice of threat, the voice of suffering, the voice of frustration, the voice hunger and thirst, and the many voices that challenge our commitment to the Lord to take precedence of the voice of the Lord which comes to us in quiet sleepy moments. It takes a concentrated mind to hear this voice because all other voices come with the noisy environments of our life.
In sum, this page of the word of God, compares God’s strengthening of his prophet through the miraculous provision of food with that of Jesus’ strengtheneing of his people on pilgrimage to heaven with the bread from heaven which is the eucharist.
SECOND READING: Ephesians 4:30-5:2
St. Paul in this pastoral letter is very much concerned in giving a practical advice for peaceful, communal Christian living among former enemies, the now converted Jews and converted Gentiles. He reminds them of how their discipleship to christ should look like, embibing all the virtues that accommodate the Spirit of God meant for their redemption and not the vices that grieve Him. By consequence, every baptised Christian have already been empowered by the Holy Spirit to embrace, understand and meet the challenges of a committed life. Therefore, bitterness, anger, slander, and malice must necessarily be uprooted in order to give room for kindness, compassion and mutual forgiveness that should be innate to Christ’ followers. When we are led by the Spirit, we will neither grieve nor murmur as presented by the first reading and the gospel, but rather, it is the Spirit himself who becomes the advocate and master of our life and action. But we must underline that it is faith that strengthens us to live in communion with the Spirit, helping us to do right in our relationships with others in a world filled with terror and violence and even in a Church marked sometimes by betrayal and disillusionment.
GOSPEL: John 6:41-51
This passage of the Gospel of John is one of the biblical foundations of the Eucharist. In it, Jesus reveals himself as God himself and the only source of life and means of reaching the Father. Here he made series of claims:
1. I AM THE LIVING BREAD THAT CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN
When in the desert the Israelites murmured for the bread to eat, God caused manner to rain down for them in abundance. This prefigures the Christ who came down from heaven and who has made himself food for his pilgrim people on earth (viaticum). He came down purposely for his people on earth who are threading on a rough path of life; wounded, tired, hungry and thirsty. He is the new manner, the living manner sent by God, no longer to the old Israel but to the new Israel
2. I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE
When the Israelites ate the manner for several occasions, they started complaining because they were tired of eating the same food. This implies the materiality, the perishability and the insatiability of the manner. They became so used to it that they no longer find meaning in it. On the contrary, Jesus is that food that is neither material nor perishable. He is that food that gives not just strength for those on earthly journey, but as well the food that gives them life, eternal life. And thus no one who truly taste this bread will ever complain of hunger nor being used to it. We can never be used to Jesus. He renews himself in us and makes himself available for a fresh encounter.
3. THE BREAD THAT I WILL GIVE IS MY FLESH FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD
Jesus was well aware that the world has no life or rather man has lost his life to sin. But since this life is redeemable, only Jesus can restore it. Therefore the bread which he offers as a pledge for this life is his own flesh. By giving himself as food, he snubs life out of himself so that the world dead to sin may live again.
4. NO ONE CAN COME TO ME UNLESS THE FATHER WHO SENT ME DRAWS HIM
Jesus speaks of his inseparable relationship with the Father. He intimates them on the fact that his mission is from the Father himself and that any access to him must be engineered by the Father. In other words, no one can claim to know the son without the Father. If we are disciples of Christ, then it means that it is the Father himself who has drawn us to him.
5. I WILL RAISE HIM ON THE LAST DAY
Here Jesus makes his audience to understand the realness and the indispensable nature of the bread He offers. If this bread is himself capable of giving life beyond the material, then it means that anyone who truly eats it will not perish but will live forever. I will raise him on the last day means he has part of me in him, and that part of me cannot be subjected to the power of death forever. I will surely redeem what belongs to me. Thus the bread of life which Jesus offers us is a pledge for resurrection.
6. NO ONE HAS SEEN THE FATHER EXCEPT THE ONE WHO IS FROM GOD
By this word, Jesus intensified his claim of his oneness with the Father and equally increased the number of his ‘blasphemous utterances’ before his jewish listeners. He made them to understand that he is the only access to the Father. And since he came from the Father, if they come to him, he will lead them to see the Father.
This is one of the most difficult teachings of Jesus very hard for his jewish listeners to accept. And by consequence, it will serve as one of the constitutive elements of his future execution. The claim that he came from the Father was totally unacceptable and purely blasphemous given that his audience were well aware of his biological background: “Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” However, looking at his background and the series of claims he made, they may have come to a natural conclusion; “either this man was and is the son of God or a madman or something worse” (C.S Lewis). The greatest difficulty that obstructs the belief in Jesus was not just the fact that he claimed to have come from the Father, but his background. But Jesus was negligent of the impression his audience had about him and whatever was their evaluation about his identity. He was not addressing them at this time as the Jesus they knew who grew up among them, rather he was showing them a portrait of the son of God. This transcendental teaching makes the bipolar identity of Jesus as the son of God and the son of man irreconcilable in the mind of his audience. By this the evangelist John wishes to pull his audience out from a natural, familiar and banal identity of Jesus to a higher appreciation of his identity as the son of God and as one sent by God for the life of the world. It is this life that he proposes in the form of offering himself as bread to them, not like the perishable manner of the old Israel in the wilderness meant for quenching physical hunger, but a manner meant to give life to those who will receive it. This is the working of the sacred specie of the Altar. Jesus present in body, soul and divinity gives us life in and through the eucharistic meal.
Life messages
1) We need to eat the Living Bread from Heaven and be one with Jesus:
Jesus wants us to eat him because He IS Bread. “You are what you eat?” Jesus is Bread and He wants us to eat his Flesh. Thus, we bring him into the core of our being. Jesus is ready to come into our lives, regardless of who we have been, or how unqualified we feel. Let us live the life of Faith … making life-changes so that Jesus can becomes the staple food of our spiritual life, not a side dish. Let us be people who recognize that Jesus, whom we consume, is actually God Who assimilates us into His being. Thus, from Sunday to Saturday we will grow into Jesus, as Jesus grows in us, our lives will be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and we will become more like Him. Thus, we shall share in the joyous and challenging Life of being the Body of Christ for the world – Bread for a hungry world, and Drink for those who thirst for justice, peace, fullness of life, and even eternal life.
2) We need to accept the “Real Presence” of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist as an inspiring challenge.
Based on sound tradition and the centuries-long teaching of the Magisterium, the Roman Catholic Church has consistently held fast to the belief in the Real Presence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the other sacraments as the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all sacraments tend.” In this most blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist we receive “the Body and Blood, together with the soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ, is truly, really, and substantially contained” (CCC #1374). The Fathers of the Church explain that, while ordinary food is assimilated into man, the very opposite takes place in Holy Communion. Here, man is assimilated into the Bread of Life. Hence, let us learn to receive Jesus, really present in the Eucharist, with due reverence, true repentance, proper preparation and grateful hearts. Let us remember that Holy Communion a) increases our intimate union with Christ; b) preserves, increases, and renews the Sanctifying Grace received at Baptism; c) cleanses us from past sin and preserves us from future sins; d) strengthens the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, thus enabling us to be separated from our disordered attachments and to be rooted in Christ; and e) unites us more deeply to the Mystery of the Church. (Fr. Anthony Kadavil).
3) Have you lost the taste of Jesus in the Eucharist?
The Eucharist is such a greatest gift that the Church received from Christ. It is a life-giving bread that sustains her children who are on pilgrimage to Eternal Jerusalem. It may not have enough taste to please the tongue. Its taste lies in the soul. However, the more the worthy soul, the more it feels the taste and satisfaction of the Eucharist.
It is obvious that the Eucharist no longer appeals to many Catholics. The truth is that when the soul is enshrouded by sin, it loses the taste for Jesus. Here the Eucharist no longer functions as a food that nourishes the soul but as a mark of death. The Eucharist though is meant for every communicant but it is only for communicants in the state of grace. This state of grace is attained through the Sacramental confession and constant desirous Communion with the Lord.
Therefore, to those who have lost touch with the Lord, He has not lost touch with them. He is ever ready to renew the contract of love that He has sealed through his redemptive death as long as they desire to savour him again who is ever tasteful and satisfactory.
PRAYER
Christ in the Eucharist You are the daily Bread of the soul that sustains us on our journey towards the Father. Help us to always hunger for you, and keep us free from all stains of sin that render us unworthy of you and weaken the bond between You and those You have chosen to be your own. Amen.
PAX VOBIS!
