"I am the living bread that came down from heaven"
John 6: 51-58
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061123.cfm
Our rich Catholic faith is
filled with wonderful opportunities for us to gather with one another. There is weekly Mass of course, then the ever
present baptisms, first communions, Confirmations, weddings, parish/school
events, even funerals despite their sad yet grateful tone. All of this reflects
how God has called us to be. To gather
in grateful fellowship as his Church, his Body. Indeed, all are welcome to the
grace of conversion in Christ.
Our second reading this
Sunday from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians has a key word to understanding
our call to be a Eucharistic people, to receive and to become in visible form,
the Body of Christ as Church. In prayer over these readings a few days back, I
was paused by one word; that word is: “participation.” As Paul writes to his
Corinthian Christians, he states: “The
cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation
in the blood of Christ? The bread we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? . . .”
To participate in the sense Paul implies means far more than just
showing up. It means to enter in to the
experience of our Lord’s saving action in his death/resurrection and then to give
thanks for the life given to us in the Eucharist. To enter into that event, to
share in it, and to receive our Lord in gratefulness through the sacrifice of
our own lives after his example. Life changing food! We participate in the holy
mystery of Christ’s presence among us, we receive him who is the resurrection
and the life, and then we hear the call to mission and to take the good news
out to the world around us and to reform ourselves in the process.
That is profound is it
not? Paul assured his early Christians
that they are called to be different than others around them and to choose
discipleship over self-centered living. In their gatherings for prayer and
worship when they “broke bread” (the Eucharist) they were participating in a
life changing mystery unlike any other food or drink.
The Second Vatican Council
called for “full, active and conscious” participation in the Mass. One has to
show up to begin with, then not simply sit passively as if this gathering was a
personal devotion. If there is no sense
of community present and no feeling of moving out to be the catalyst for the
mission of Christ beyond ourselves, then something is lacking in one’s
understanding. The Eucharist means
something for it is not a thing but a person with whom we can have a true,
living encounter.
A deeper understanding of the effect of full participation is heard in our Gospel passage from John 6, the chapter on the Eucharist. Jesus says: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; . . .” Jesus makes himself to be bread – food for life, eternal life.
As the manna remembered was a sign of the sacred Torah for the Jewish people, the manna that Jesus becomes is a sign of the new law given through his body and blood. He is greater than the manna eaten by the Hebrews. This living bread is beyond just food that satisfies physical hunger but is rather a super food that provides eternal life. Every time, then, like Moses spoke to his people in the desert, we “remember” what God has done for us through his Son who gives himself to us under these ordinary signs of bread and wine: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him . . .”
This is a great sacramental
mystery – the Eucharist – which we Catholics truly believe to be not a symbol,
some sort of reminder or recall of a meal eaten with Jesus 20 centuries ago
like one might remember a birthday party or family picnic. But this IS a Person and every time we
consume, literally eat and drink, this Person who is sacramentally but truly
present to us, we share in his risen life. Therefore, we are different than other Christian denominations around us who recognize the Eucharist, or their communion, more as a fellowship meal with the bread and grape juice as only symbolic.
To make a connection that
enhances a deeper reflection, we journey back to the book of Genesis and the
story of the creation of the first man and woman. There, they were given abundant food to eat,
yet were warned to not eat of the other.
Yet, they choose to eat the meal that was forbidden and set sin and
death in motion. That meal caused a painful wound between us and our creator.
What Jesus has done on the
other hand, by instituting the meal of the Eucharist, his very self, reversed
the choice that brought darkness and by his death/resurrection gave us a new
food to every lasting life. The meal of the
Eucharist remembers that event that healed a broken relationship between us and
God.
The unity the Eucharist
creates among us is meant to not stop in Church. Called to lay down our lives, to sacrifice
for the common good and for the good of others, we live out the meaning of this
super food. Jesus doesn’t come for me
alone but for US in a way that brings about a bond of unity with him and with
others through this bread from heaven in this powerful transformative moment.
So let us remember this
great act of divine love that continues to feed us and with humble hearts, and
to participate with full heart and mind in that which has the power to change
us to conform more to Christ’s own example.
“Go and announce the Gospel
of the Lord”
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