Our discipleship of the Lord Jesus is about us as a Eucharistic community witnessing to the love of Jesus in our lives,

 

Twentieth Sunday in OT  B  2024

This Sunday’s Gospel is the fourth consecutive Sunday that the Gospel is taken from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.   The Bread of Life Discourse from the 6^th chapter of John’s Gospel reaches a crescendo with startling hopes and startling claims.  “The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”   The second claim is:    “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”

You will recall the 6^th chapter of John’s Gospel began with Jesus feeding 5,000 people with five barley loaves and two fish.  After the miracle of the 5,000, everyone wanted to follow Jesus.  “Free Food,” they declared, anticipating that Jesus was another Moses who was going to shower down manna and quail on his followers.  Everyone was touched with the offer of free food – a graciously abundant gift and a welcome relief to their hunger.  Even now, the best way to get a good crowd at a parish event is to offer food – “Free Food.”

But today’s Gospel is not about Jesus as a worldly cafeteria manager; Jesus is drawing a radical line in the sand.  We are followers of Jesus not because we attend potluck and social gatherings that we call Christ-centered.  Rather, we are the followers of Jesus when we share in the Body and the Blood of the Lord.  “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  There is no diet on earth healthier than this.

Our discipleship of the Lord Jesus is not just about getting free food; it is about us as a Eucharistic community witnessing to the love of Jesus.  It is about our union with Jesus as the way to eternal life.

To share in the Body and Blood of the Lord expresses our willingness to be the followers of the crucified Christ as well as the Risen Christ.  We need to ask ourselves the questions:  Are we willing to die with Jesus?  Are we willing to share in the same suffering that the Lord Himself experiences?  This is what it takes to be a follower of Jesus.

The question for our gospel reflection today is how far are we willing to go with Jesus?  Do we want eternal bread or do we want everyday bread?  The desire to grab a free meal can disable us from hearing Jesus’ invitation to the eternal.  In this Eucharistic discourse, Jesus is drawing lines, dividing his followers between those who are looking for a handout and those who will go the distance.  Quite literally, Jesus is telling us:  “If you are not willing to share in my death and drink from my suffering, then you should turn back now.”

When you consume Christ, he becomes part and parcel of who you are.  He energizes you to do His work of ministry.  The bread of our Lord is empowering.  It not only can fill the heart, but it can also lead the recipient to overflow into actions of love.  As was said of Francis of Assisi, “It is in giving that we receive.”  We are called to bring the love of Christ to the broken places of our Church and of our world.

The Church at Eucharist is a community aware of its sinfulness and repentant of its sins.  It is a community convinced of the power of God’s grace, a community ready to serve others, i.e., to carry out “the breaking of the bread” beyond the church, and a community, here and now, open to the presence of the Lord and the Spirit.  This is the community we become when we share Jesus’ real food and real drink together; constituted as such by the Eucharist, it becomes both the privilege and responsibility of all who eat the Bread of Life together to become bread for the life and salvation of the world.

At Eucharist, we are interconnected with Jesus, and we are interconnected with God’s people.  In Eucharist, we are committing ourselves to being connected with the Church.  The Eucharist is a Sacrament of the Church.

Yes, we can find bleeding in the Church and in the world today.  We come before the Lord seeking for the grace to trust again in each other.   We are still missioned and it is still both a privilege and a responsibility of all who eat the Bread of Life together to become bread for the life of the world.

Have a Blessed Day,

 

 

The Bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

 

Nineteenth Sunday in OT  B  2024   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Growing up, I was one of six children to Adam and Grace Schwartz.  We lived on Inglewood Drive in the city of Rochester.  Nothing fancy about our house.  Three bedrooms – one for my parents, one for my three sisters, and one for my two brothers and myself.  One bathroom.  My dad worked for the Rochester Telephone Co for 45 years, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom.  She did have six children in nine years, and so she had plenty to do.  My dad was a conscientious provider.  None of his six children look underfed.  Education was an important priority for my dad, and he was a strict disciplinarian.

 

I certainly loved my parents and, as I say, my dad worked extremely hard to provide for his large family.  As a youth, I depended on my dad to provide whatever we needed, and that he did.  As I grew older,  my relationship with my dad matured and I saw my dad as much more than a good provider.  I saw him as a person who loved and needed to be loved.  I grew to experience more the joys and challenges of his life.

 

I tell you about my relationship with my dad as a way of explaining the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel that has been the Gospel in the Sundays of this summer.

 

The sixth chapter begins with Jesus feeding the five thousand with the miraculous miracle of the multiplication of the five barley loaves and two fish.  The disciples of Jesus thought that this is as good as it gets.  And so, they followed Jesus to get more food and have their physical hunger needs satisfied and their bellies filled.

 

After the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus is seeking to lead his disciples into a deeper relationship with him.  Instead of just being a good provider to their physical hunger, Jesus is now tapping into a deeper relationship with his disciples, Jesus now says:  “I am the Bread of Life.”  Jesus is now speaking to the deepest hunger of the human heart – their spiritual hunger for God.  Jesus wishes to enter a deeper relationship with his disciples – more than a worker of miracles to satisfy their physical hunger.

 

Just as a youth, l primarily looked at my dad as an excellent provider to the many needs of his large family, as I grew older and more mature, I had a deeper relationship with my dad and saw him much more than just as a provider but as a person who loves and wishes to be loved.

 

When Jesus tells us in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, “I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE.  He who eats my flesh will never hunger.  He who drinks my blood will never thirst.”  Jesus is sharing is divine life with us in the mystery of the Eucharist so that we can experience God’s unconditional love for us.

 

Just so, when our relationship with God begins to mature, we begin to understand our calling to care for God’s creation.  We are prompted to show mercy for those struggling in life.  We value forgiving others, having experienced God’s forgiveness ourselves.  We become free to be generous with the blessings we have received, humbled by the truth that everything we have was gifted to us and that our treasure is in heaven.

 

As we seek our mature relationship with Jesus in our lives, we wrestle with questions and doubts even as the first disciples questioned who Jesus was for them.  In their murmuring, the first disciples said:  “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?  Do we not know his mother and his father?  Then how can he say, ‘I have

come down from heaven.’  Maybe that is our equivalent of the Mass becoming such a routine part of our lives. Homilies cease to inspire.  We have lost the wonder.   We have lost the mystery.  The Mass is too ordinary, too routine.

 

It is worth pondering whether we spend more time murmuring and complaining or whether our time is spent with gratitude with the blessings of life?

 

We ask for the grace to see with the eyes of faith.  As a Eucharistic people, we are fed and nourished with the bread of life and the cup of salvation; our lives are transformed by the love of Jesus within us. The Israelites were amazed at the manna that came down from heaven.  May we be more amazed with Jesus, the Bread of Life, that has come down from heaven.  Indeed, this is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it. 

 

The process of Eucharistic conversion for all of us is the deepening of the awe, the expectancy of being fed by the bread of life and the chalice of salvation.

 

If the Eucharist is only a Sunday morning thing, if there is anger and hatred in our hearts toward others, if our attention is only mixed at best, if we are hassled about many things, we have not opened our hearts to the transforming love of God revealed in the Eucharistic mystery.

 

To unlock the mystery of John’s Bread of Life discourse from his sixth chapter, we need to plummet the last line of today’s Gospel.  “The Bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  Jesus’ crucified body is bread?  It is hard to imagine how Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross actually feeds us.  The cross is a place of glory for Jesus.  It is on the cross that Jesus will draw all people to himself.

 

For Jesus, his death on the cross was the pathway to resurrection.  For us, the great mystery of our faith is that in dying we are born to eternal life.  In dying to ourselves in the crosses of our lives, enables to live more freely in the service and love of others in praise of God.

 

The sacred mystery of the Eucharist is the connection between the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross in giving his live so that we may live sharing in His risen life. Save us, Savior of the world, for by your cross and resurrection you have set us free.

 

Have a blessed day.

 

 

 

 

 

In the mystery of the Eucharist, it is Jesus, the Bread of Life, that feeds our souls.

 

Eighteenth Sunday in O T   B  2024

 

 

In the first Scripture reading from the Book of Exodus, 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. 

 

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 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.  Jesus tells to look for a different kind of food.  Jesus said to them:  I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE.

 

It is as if the Israelites who were grumbling in their journey in the desert and the followers of Jesus who had just benefited from the multiplication of the loaves and fishes were looking for more fast food.  We Americans know quite a bit about fast foods and the convenience and the tastiness of fast food restaurants.  I read a statistic that says the average American each year spends about $1,200 on fast food.  It’s easy and handy, don’t you know.  But in no way is this a healthy way to live compared to a healthy, balanced diet of fruits and vegetables.

 

My question for us to ponder, is there such a thing as fast-food faith?  Quick and healthy but without lasting spiritual benefits.  Indeed this is the message of Jesus in today’s Gospel.  The disciples had just experienced the miracle of the loaves and fishes and thought this is as good as it gets.

 

Perhaps the quick fix faith is that our prayer life lies dormant until we are in a fox hole and desperate for the Lord to bring healing for our lives.  We need to ask ourselves whether we pray in gratitude over the blessings of life as much as we do in the more needy circumstances of life.  Do I come to Mass to give thanks or the mindset well I didn’t get anything out of this boring and so it’s not for me.

 

The faith we seek is more that a fast food faith but rather a trust that Jesus accompanies in the crosses as well as the joys of life.  The more we trust in God’s plan for us, the more our life is filled with meaning and much love.

 

Jesus is now teaching his disciples about their deeper spiritual hunger when he says:  I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE.

 

Last week in the Gospel miracle, we learned that God sent Jesus to do exactly what God did for the Israelites:  feed the multitude.  But now Jesus invites us into more than just a quick fix for their hunger.  In the sixth of John’s Gospel, Jesus recognizes that people are just coming to watch him fix the world’s problems quickly.  In other words, for most people he’s just the God who rains down manna and meets their immediate needs.

 

 

Jesus seeks now to have his disciples take the next step in their journey of faith.  In saying, that I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE, Jesus is inviting his disciples into a relationship with Him that satisfies their deepest hunger in a way that last for eternity. 

 

 

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 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.

 

It’s important to note that 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.”

 

While the Mass is about external ritual with 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 the Risen Lord, the ritual will never fully satisfy us.  This is the message of today’s Gospel and the entire sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.

 

 

 

Getting back to the Mass, 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, our spiritual hunger remains unsatisfied.

 

Today we gather with our parish community who are always grateful for our daily manna but are even more grateful for the unending love we experience in our relationship with the person of Jesus who comes to us in the mystery of the Eucharist.

 

As miraculous as the feeding of the five thousand was at the beginning of this sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, may we ponder the words of Jesus:  I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never hunger, whoever believes in me will never thirst”