10.08.2003 Sunday 19th Ordinary Season Year B
First Reading I Kings
19, 4-8
Psalm 33
Second Reading Ephesians 4, 30-5, 2
Gospel John 6, 41-51
For five Sundays the reading of the Gospel according to Mark will be interrupted. We will be reading the sixth chapter of John which is particularly dense, rich and revealing of the person of Jesus and his thoughts, In this chapter the evangelist brings together the teachings on the great gift of the Eucarist. The Jews show their difficulty in accepting or understanding this gift; a difficulty which many of us share today!
Jesus is the son of Joseph, how can he say that he comes from heaven? This is the first difficulty, we will hear the others in the following Sundays. Jesus replies without surprise. To recognize the person of Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God is a gift of the Fathers. To go to him as the one who can guide my life, accepting him as my daily bread, as the rule and light of every step I take, this is a gift of God! Those who are willing, in all humility, to obey God come to Jesus and delight in his presence! Jesus' claims are important: whoever comes to him shows that he has listened to the Father! He is the bread of life of men and women: if they wish to be vital, alive, they must eat the bread of life! Man cannot be satisfied with material bread alone, the bread which fills his stomach and gives energy to his muscles. This bread is useful and necessary, but it also feeds man's ill will and the sins which dominate him. We need a different kind of bread which feeds eternal life, i.e. life that is full, divine, the life of true love which is free, the life that can lead us to the living Spirit of God! This bread is offered to us: it is Jesus himself, his body given for us. He is the bread which comes from heaven, offered to us by the Father, bread which feeds dimensions other than material ones. He is the bread, therefore, for whoever is not satisfied with the simple, instinctual life of an animal, but who wishes greater harmony with God, for whoever is searching for the beauty of Truth and the justice of peace!
The prophecy of Elijah and his painful experiences help us to understand the
value and the meaning of this bread. Elijah was fleeing to escape from Jezebel,
the pagan Queen who had married Acab, King of Israel, and who wanted to have
him put to death. Elijah had defended faith in the only God, the God of Israel
in the face of the idolatries that Jezebel was spreading among the people causing
them to break their alliance! In fleeing Elijah had to cross the desert where
he suffered greatly from the heat, hunger and thirst.
He gave up all hope of surviving and prayed to God for death. At this point
an angel shows him some bread and water and invites him, twice, to eat. Restored
and strengthened in body and in spirit, Elijah continues on his way to the mountain
of God!
The bread which comes from heaven is the unexpected, undeserved support, which the love of God gives us, the support and strength which helps us to cope with the problems of life and to achieve our rest and our meeting with God on his mountain!
The mountain of God is an image which can have many meanings. It is the starting and the finishing point. It is the aim of the work which we begin on ourselves to remove from our lives that which is displeasing to God and that which prevents us from being his image and likeness; it is the starting point of our work among men to bring them the riches of the love of God!
St Paul, writing to the Ephesians, gives us some indications on this inner
work. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away
from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another: the example is that of God who has forgiven us in Christ, that
God of whom we must become images according to the example of Jesus! He gave
himself up as a sacrifice for us! This sacrifice, we know, is what is fullfilled
when we are nourished with the bread that has been blessed and broken at our
meetings. To reach the mountain of God, to meet the Father, purified, renewed,
ready to become his image and likeness and ready to show him to the world, we
too eat of the bread that he himself gave us: the living bread, that descended
from heaven, that is Jesus! Try it and see how good is the Lord!