Eighteenth Sunday in OT
B 2018
In the first Scripture reading
from the Book of Exodus, we read about our ancestors in faith. The Israelites weren’t having a good
time. Their complaints were
mounting. Nothing was going right for
them. Moses their leader was on the hot
seat.
First, they wanted freedom. They
were willing to leave Egypt for freedom. But as soon as they had freedom, they
realized that the now lacked the food that they had enjoyed in Egypt! This is
such a human story. When we get what we want, then we want something else. And
very often we forget to enjoy what we have already.
God patiently works with them and
responds to their complaints with bread from heaven. As they gather the manna each day of their
journey, they may learn to trust that God will always care for them.
But the truth of their journey
lies in the reality that until the people learned to trust in God, they would
never make much progress towards the Promised Land.
This is the truth of our
spiritual journey as well: Until we
trust in God’s faithfulness to us, we wander a bit aimlessly.
In our wandering, we ask ourselves: “What do I want out of life?”
The answer to this question is very,
very important. If we are starving for food, we will surely answer that we want
food. If we are prisoners and being tortured, surely we will answer that we
want freedom. So often our answers can be a clear response to the things that
we most lack in life.
For those of us who are not physically hungry, we still ask
ourselves for what are we hungry for?
What will bring us the fullness of life?
In today’s Gospel, remembering when Jesus fed five thousand
people with only two fish and five barley loaves, the crowd chased Jesus down
to ask for more, as if Jesus had a magic picnic hamper always full of food.
In the Gospel, people begin to follow Jesus and He realizes that
they are following Him because He was able to give them bread. They do not
recognize that when He gave them bread, there was a great sign being presented
about God’s relationship to the world.
A fundamental question for the disciples of Jesus was: Do you seek the bread the Father gives, or do
you seek the Father who gives you bread?
More than satisfying our physical hunger, Jesus wishes us to have a
relationship with the God who breathes life into our spirit. The bread is a sign of God’s love for us. Jesus tells us to look for a different kind
of food. Jesus said to them: I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE.
Jesus now says that the deepest hungers and thirsts of the human
heart are satisfied through the person of Jesus. He is food for our souls. Jesus is inviting us to a personal
relationship with him.
Jesus is trying to refocus the inquiring minds and hearts of his disciples. They are seeking him because they have filled
their bellies on the loaves of bread.
But they have not understood the loaves as signs of God’s care for
people. They are well acquainted with
their physical hunger and deeply attached to filling it. But they are less acquainted with their
spiritual hunger and unsure how to fill it.
Jesus tells them that he himself is the one who feeds them with eternal
food.
The teaching in today’s Gospel points to the mystery of the
Eucharist when Jesus says: “I am the
bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in
me will never thirst.”
Today’s readings challenge us to consider our own lives, what we
have, what we lack and what we want. Am I seriously hungry for spiritual food?
Do I confuse the goods of this life with serious spiritual food? Am I willing
to give up my life in order to receive bread from heaven? Am I willing to
suffer in this life for the sake of true spiritual food? Am I willing to accept
whatever happens in my life and seek God alone?
May this Sunday open our hearts and our minds to the person of
Jesus in our lives. May we desire God’s
presence with our whole being and do whatever is necessary to seek God’s mercy
and compassion!
While the externals of the Mass ritual are about sacred music,
Scripture readings, a homily, a gathering of the parish community, the
receiving of Communion, but unless the Mass is also a prayerful encounter with
Jesus, the ritual will never fully satisfy us.
This is the message of today’s Gospel and the entire sixth chapter of
John’s Gospel.
When
our Mass consciousness focuses our relationship with Jesus, the Eucharist can
change our human life in profound ways.
It’s that part of us that wants to hold the Life of God within our hearts like
living tabernacles – waking with the Lord in the morning, sharing our joys and
sufferings with Jesus throughout the day, and resting in the Lord again at the
end of it all. It’s that part of us that, despite our limitations and our
sinfulness wants to give the life that Christ demands of us everything
we’ve got. It’s that part of us that cries out with Jesus’
followers in the Gospel, “Lord, give us this bread always!”
The Mass is about hospitality, making people feel welcomed, the
gathering of the parish community, it is about good music, it is about good
homilies, it is about ritual and liturgy, but most of all, it happens on a
deeper spiritual level, it is about our encounter with the Risen Lord. It is about the Lord speaking to us the
words: “I love you.” And our response of gratitude and love to the
Lord. Unless we experience the Lord in
the mystery of the Eucharist, we have not yet understood the words of Jesus in
today’s Gospel: I am the Bread of Life.
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