SYNOPSIS: OT XIX [B] (AUGUST 9) HOMILY ON JOHN 6:41-51 (L/15)
Introduction: We are living in a world where people of all races and creeds hunger more for spiritual sustenance than for physical food. In response to the spiritual hunger of people in his own day, Jesus proclaims himself to be “the Bread of Life that came down from Heaven.”
Scripture lessons: The first reading describes the physical and spiritual hungers experienced by the prophet Elijah. The Bread of Life Jesus speaks about is prefigured in this reading by the miraculous food with which the angel nourished the Prophet Elijah in the desert while he was fleeing from the soldiers of Queen Jezebel. After being nourished by the Lord, Elijah was strengthened for the long journey of forty days to Mount Horeb where God instructed him to continue his prophetic work.
The second reading presents Christ Jesus, the “Bread of Life,” as a “sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians that, instead of seeking satisfaction in anger, slander, bitterness and malice, they are to nourish one another with compassion, kindness and mutual forgiveness.
Today’s Gospel describes Jesus’ discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum on his return there after his miraculous feeding of the five thousand. During the discourse, Jesus reveals himself as the true “Bread of Life that came down from Heaven,” to give life to the world. Jesus proclaims himself as the new and perfect manna, the Incarnate Son of God literally “come down from Heaven.” This means that the Holy Eucharist actually gives us a share of eternal life while we are still on earth. But some of Jesus’ followers turned away when he explained the source of his mysterious power and his Heavenly origin.
Life messages: 1) Let us accept the challenge to become bread and drink for others: “You are what you eat?” Let us recognize that Jesus whom we consume in the Holy Eucharist is actually God Who assimilates us into His being. Then, 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 Jesus. 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. In other words, the Eucharist challenges us to sacrifice ourselves for others, as Christ has done for all of us.
# 2: Let us appreciate Christ’s presence in the Holy Eucharist: Since the Holy Eucharist is “the Body and Blood, together with the soul and Divinity of our Lord, Jesus Christ,” the Sacrament a) increases our intimate union with Christ; b) preserves, increases, and renews the Sanctifying Grace we received at Baptism; c) cleanses us of past sin and preserves us from future sins; d) strengthens the theological virtue of Charity in us, thus enabling us to be separated from our disordered attachments and to be rooted in Christ; and e) unites us more deeply with the mystery of the Church.
OT XIX [B] (August 2) I Kings 19:4-8, Ephesians 4:30–5:2, Jn 6:41-51
Anecdotes: # 1: Marching caterpillars: You may know the famous story of Jean Henri Fabre, the French naturalist, and his processional caterpillars. He encountered some of these interesting creatures one day while walking in the woods. They were marching in a long unbroken line front to back, front to back. What would happen if he made a complete ring with these worms? Would they break their circle or not? So, Fabre captured enough caterpillars to encircle the rim of a flowerpot. He linked them nose to posterior and started them walking in the closed circle. For days they turned like a perpetual merry-go-round. Although food was near at hand and accessible, the caterpillars starved to death on an endless march to nowhere. That seems to be the story of many people today. They are on a march that leads to nowhere. We need to stop for a moment, and sit down in the presence of Jesus and receive him as the Bread of our spiritual life.
# 2: Starving to death in the midst of plenty of food: During the winter of 1610, the population of British immigrants to Jamestown, in the U.S. (the Pilgrims) went from about 500 people to about 60. While disease and American-Indians took some lives, most of the settlers simply starved. There were plentiful supplies of fish, oysters, frogs, fowl, and deer all around them. But these settlers from the city were not accustomed to obtaining food from the land. Hence, they starved! [Cullen, Joseph P. “James’ Towne,” American History Illustrated (October, 1972).] We sometimes act the same way. God comes to us continually in the Person of the Holy Spirit to guide us. As a loving Father, God awaits the opportunity to meet our needs, but we are not accustomed to receiving things from His loving hand. In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises to give us spiritual food. It is up to us to receive the Heavenly Bread.
# 3: He died arguing with them that the canisters were empty. John Krakauer wrote a book entitled Into Thin Air, the story of an expedition to Mount Everest during the spring of 1996 which resulted in a great loss of life. One of the most unfortunate stories was about a young man named Andy Harris, who was one of the expedition leaders. He had stayed at the peak past the deadline that the leaders themselves had set, and as he was coming down, he was in dire need of oxygen. He radioed his problem to the base camp telling them what he needed and told them that he had come upon a cache of oxygen canisters left by some of the other climbers, but they were all empty. The problem was they were not empty – they were absolutely full, but because his brain was already so starved for oxygen and he wasn’t thinking clearly, he died arguing with them that the canisters were empty when in reality they were full. The problem was that the lack of what he needed so disoriented his thinking that, even though he was literally surrounded by what he needed, he never took advantage of it. The very life that he needed he held in his hand. He just didn’t take it. What oxygen is to the body the Bread of Life is to the soul. Without that Bread, we will never satisfy our real spiritual hunger which is why every day we need to feed on the Bread of the word of God.
Introduction: We are living in a world where people of all races and creeds hunger more for spiritual sustenance than for physical food. In response to the spiritual hunger of people in his own day, Jesus, in today’s Gospel passage from John 6, proclaims himself to be “the Bread of Life that came down from heaven.” It is through Jesus, the bread of life, that we have access to the Divine life during our earthly pilgrimage to God. The sixth chapter of the Gospel of John which contains Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist begins with Jesus’ miraculous feeding of his five thousand hungry listeners in a deserted place to satisfy their bodily hunger. Today’s Gospel describes Jesus’ discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum on his return there after his miraculous feeding of the five thousand. During the discourse, Jesus reveals himself as the true “Bread of Life that came down from Heaven,” to give life to the world. “Manna” was God’s gift rained down “from Heaven” upon the Israelites to prolong their earthly life. Jesus proclaims himself as the new and perfect manna, as the Incarnate Son of God, literally “come down from Heaven.” This means that the Bread we consume in the Eucharist is more than just a guarantee that one day we’ll have eternal life. It actually gives us a share of that eternal life while we are still on earth. But some of those who had just witnessed Jesus’ ability to supply them with earthly food turned away when he explained the source of his mysterious power and his Heavenly origin. The first reading describes the physical and spiritual hungers experienced by the prophet Elijah. In this reading, the Bread of Life Jesus speaks about is prefigured by the miraculous food with which the angel nourished the Prophet Elijah in the desert while he was fleeing from the soldiers of Queen Jezebel. After being nourished by the Lord, Elijah was strengthened for the long journey of forty days to Mount Horeb where God had given Moses the Ten Commandments. The second reading presents Christ Jesus, the “Bread of Life,” as a “sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians that, instead of seeking satisfaction in anger, slander, bitterness and malice, they are to nourish one another with compassion, kindness and mutual forgiveness. It is Faith that strengthens us to live in this way, doing the right thing in our relationships with others, in a world filled with terror and violence and in a Church marked by betrayal and disillusionment.
First reading, 1 Kings 19:4-8: King Ahab of Israel married a pagan queen, Jezebel, who imported pagan worship into Israel. The prophet Elijah challenged 450 of the pagan god Baal’s prophets, defeated them in a public sacrifice-contest and killed all of them. The furious Queen Jezebel sent soldiers to kill the prophet. Today’s first reading expresses Elijah’s discouragement and frustration as he fled for his life. Collapsed in the only available shade, Elijah fell into a sleep of exhaustion while awaiting release through a speedy death. God heard His prophet’s prayer and sent an angel to feed him and strengthen him in his flight. The miraculous food provided by God sustained him through a 40-day pilgrimage to Horeb (Mount Sinai), where Elijah would be commissioned again as God’s prophet to carry on the struggle and to anoint his successor. Like Elijah, all of us learn to recognize our weakness and frailty, and are able to experience God’s empowering grace which is capable of transforming our powerlessness and discouragement. The lectionary compares God’s strengthening of his prophet by the miraculously-provided food with His strengthening of us in our pilgrimage to Heaven by the Bread from Heaven, namely, the Holy Eucharist.
Second Reading, Ephesians 4:30-5:2: The second reading contains St. Paul’s practical advice for peaceful, communal Christian living among former enemies, namely, the now-converted Jews and the converted Gentiles. Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians that their discipleship must be guided by the virtues of compassion and forgiveness, avoiding “bitterness, fury, shouting and reviling which would grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” That is how they should offer their lives as sacrifices pleasing to God, just as Jesus, “the Bread from Heaven,” offered himself as a “sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” It is Faith that strengthens us to live this way, doing the right thing in our relationships with others, in a world filled with terror and violence and in a Church marked by betrayal and disillusionment.
Exegesis: Jesus’ unique claims: Jesus makes a series of unique claims in today’s gospel passage: 1) “I am the Living Bread that came down from Heaven.” 2)”I am the Bread of Life.” 3) “The Bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world.” 4)“No one can come to me unless the Father Who sent me draw him.” 5)“I will raise him on the last day.” 6) “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God.” In short, Christ Jesus reveals himself as God and as the “Bread of Life from Heaven,” sent by the Father for our salvation.
Jesus’ claims challenged: Jesus’ Jewish listeners could hardly contain themselves when Jesus claimed to be the “Bread of Life” (v. 35) who “came down from Heaven” (v. 38). They thought they knew his father and mother (v. 42), and saw him as just another hometown boy – a carpenter by profession without any formal training in Mosaic Laws and Jewish Scriptures. They could remember when he had moved from Nazareth to Capernaum with a band of unknown disciples, mostly fishermen. Hence, they came to the natural conclusion: “either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse” (C. S. Lewis).
The complaint launched: In today’s portion of the lengthy Bread of Life discourse (49 of Chapter Six’s 71 verses), John re-emphasizes the similarities and contrasts between the old “manna in the wilderness” experience and this new notion of a “Bread of Life” that is directly tied to Jesus. In verse 41, John’s noting of the Jewish identity of the “complaining” crowd recalls for us their own unique history. Those listening to Jesus began to “murmur” against Jesus and his gifts of Heavenly Bread even as the ancient Israelites began to “murmur” or “complain” against Moses — first out of hunger (Exodus 16:2,7,12), then against the monotony of the manna diet (Numbers 11:4-6). Like the Israelites, we, too, complain when God fails to meet our expectations.
Jesus’ response: Jesus knew that the Jews were upset about his explanation that the multiplication of bread and fish signified that he himself was the Heavenly Bread that gives eternal Life. Jesus challenged the Jews to take a journey of Faith by seeing him, not as the son of Joseph, but as the one who came down from Heaven. Saying, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me …” Jesus told his listeners, and tells us, that everyone who has become his follower has done so because God the Father has called him or her to Jesus. It is an act of God that has brought us to follow the way of Jesus. Faith is a gift. To follow Jesus is to live by Faith; to believe means to make those necessary changes to one’s lifestyle that being a believer demands. Then Jesus offered the ultimate reassurance to every one of us who believes: “I will raise him up on the last day” (cf. vv.39, 40, 44, 54). This persistent theme serves to remind the reader/listener that only Jesus, the true Bread of Life, can impart the gift of eternal Life to the faithful.
Faith in practice: “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” Here Jesus clarifies that listening to God, and learning from God are key factors in our seeking Jesus and in our growing into strong believers and faithful servants of Jesus. The Good News is that God is willing to be present in our midst and to teach us. Jesus asserts this point quoting Scripture, “And they shall be taught by God.”
The Holy Eucharist foreshadowed: Jesus’ dialogue with the Jews no longer deals with manna, but with his very person: the revealer who brings us God’s salvation. Although John’s Chapter 6 has no direct reference to the Holy Eucharist, Jesus’ words remind us of the centrality of the Eucharist as the primary source of our spiritual nourishment. Jesus knows quite well that we need both spiritual and physical food for life’s journey. He offers both to us. Thus, the meal that we share at the Eucharistic table provides the food for this journey (“viaticum”). Furthermore, He tells us that this Bread from Heaven is His Flesh, given for the life of the world. The Jews, as well as Jesus’ disciples, understood that he was speaking literally when he said that His Body was food. This statement appeared to some as outrageous and impossible. Jesus, however, insisted that His words must be accepted literally, and that His Father would draw men to accept them.
The bread from heaven is also the word of God: In the Bible, bread appears several times as an image of wisdom, or Divine revelation: Isaiah says “You who have no money, come, receive bread and eat” (55:1-3); Proverbs invites everyone, “Come, eat of my bread”(9:1-6), and Sirach says, “Whoever fears the Lord and holds to the law will obtain wisdom… She will feed him with the bread of learning.”(15:1-3). This should make a lot of sense to us, because we read books and watch movies and television to learn about life (hopefully) and to increase our knowledge. In the same way, we need to read, reflect and pray over the Word of God privately so that it can nourish our souls and be our true “soul food”.
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. He 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 changes so that he 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. Then, from Sunday to Saturday we will grow into Jesus, as he 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 “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 virtue of 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.
3) We need to appreciate God’s love for us expressed in the Holy Eucharist. Pope John Paul II taught: “The Eucharist is the Sacrament of the Presence of Christ, who gives himself to us because he loves us. He loves each one of us in a unique and personal way in our practical daily lives: in our families, among our friends, at study and work, in rest and relaxation. He loves us when he fills our days with freshness, and also when, in times of suffering, he allows trials to weigh upon us: even in the most severe trials, he lets us hear his voice. To celebrate the Eucharist, ‘to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood,’ means to accept the wisdom of the Cross and the path of service. It means that we signal our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for others, as Christ has done” Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (Holy Thursday, April 17, 2003).
4) We are participating in Christ in the Eucharistic celebration: The “Sacrifice of the Altar” is our participation in the entirety of Christ – his life, his ministry, his crucifixion and death for our sins, his Resurrection, and his Ascension to Heaven. We unite with him by offering our lives to him so that he ministers to the world through us. We sacrifice our will when and where it interferes with his, which results in our being raised up to new life as we follow Christ to Heaven. Every Catholic Mass accomplishes this by providing us with our Savior’s Body and Blood, crucified and Risen, here and now, in the form of edible food. As Pope St. John Paul II pointed out in Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that the Eucharistic banquet of Mass is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life’.”
Jokes of the week: # 1: Pastor’s bread of life: President Woodrow Wilson’s father was a preacher who eked out a meager living. One day, when he was riding his horse, he stopped to chat with a member of his parish. “That’s a handsome looking animal you have there,” said the latter admiringly. “But why is that your horse is so big and strong and you are so thin?” “Perhaps,” replied Wilson, “it is because I feed the horse and the congregation feeds me.”
#: 2: “I am going to be a preacher:” After his return from church one Sunday a small boy said, “You know what, Mommy? I’m going to be a preacher when I grow up.” “That’s fine,” said his mother, “but what made you decide to be a preacher?” “Well,” said the boy thoughtfully. “Since I have to go to Church every Sunday anyway, I think it would be more fun to stand up and yell than to sit still and listen.”
# 3: Pope Franicis’ jokes: 1) VIPTdtEvr40?rel=0
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USEFUL WEBSITES 1) Faith Magazine: 2) The Daily Motivator: 3) Vatican on Michael Voris’ views: ?v=kTZlHLtkPc8