Jesus, the Bread of Life!

In today's  Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that He is the Bread of Life come down from heaven and whoever comes to Him will never be hungry and whoever believes in Him will never thirst (John 6:24)!  In John 6:52-57)  He says to us: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. whoever east my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him."   Hearing this, many of the disciples stopped following him.

It is not uncommon for many Catholics to walk away from the Eucharist, no longer believing that the bread and wine are changed by the Holy Spirit into the body and blood, the soul and divinity of Christ at the consecration of the Mass!  Some walk away for other reasons!  Jesus, I believe, says to them what he said to those who walked away when Jesus made the above statement: "'Does this (for whatever reason one walked away from the Eucharist) shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life--and it is the Spirit that changes bread and wine into Christ at the consecration), while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you (through the priest at the consecration of the Mass) are spirit and life. But there are some of you who  do not believe.'   ....Jesus then turned to the Twelve, 'Do you also want to leave?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.'"

If God removed the veil from our eyes, we would see that the priest truly is Christ and it is Christ who says to us at the moment of the consecration: Take and eat; this is my body. Take and drink; this is my blood poured out for you!"  From that, through the grace of God,  I cannot and will not walk away!  For me, the  Mass is where we do, in memory of Jesus, what He did on Calvary: gave His all for us so that we, in turn, can give our all to others in love. And I need to be fed, nourished, strengthened and purified by "true food," the Eucharist, every day,  for that reason.

Jesus' Glorious Triumph: its Meaning

The Entrance Antiphon to today’s liturgy invites us to “sing to the Lord, for he has gloriously triumphed.”  We then pray: “The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation, alleluia.”  I was deeply touched by t he word “is”.  God is, not was or will be, but IS my strength and my might; He is my salvation.  The work of God is going on every moment of every day, in every circumstance of my life today and yours!  Jesus has “gloriously triumphed,”  that is He is gloriously triumphing over sin and death, over selfishness and greed, over deceit and jealousy, over anger and moodiness, over faithlessness and hopelessness, over hatred, blindness and deafness to the Spirit in my life right now, right here! Jesus is making a difference now!  I am overcoming evil in my life right now  because Jesus “has gloriously triumphed” in His resurrection, in the sacrificing of His life, in becoming sin for us on Calvary.

Yesterday I took a day off and went to see “Heaven is for Real.”  Heaven and earth are one in the resurrection of Jesus.  Heaven and earth are one in the Eucharist, when the Son of God descends upon our altars every single day to feed us with the Bread of Life, the Living Bread, that wells up into eternity making us more and more life Christ every day, reconciling us to the Father, cleansing the Temple of our souls with this Living Water, this Living Bread!  Alleluia!

God's Bread: Never Be Hungry Again

In today’s Gospel, John 6: 30-35, Jesus says to the crowd that is pressuring Him for a sign “so that we can put faith in you.”   The crowd reminds Jesus that  heir ancestors “had manna to eat in the desert”  that, “according to the Scriptures,”  came down from heaven.  Jesus  responds:  “I solemnly assure you,  it was not Moses who gave you bread from the heavens; it is my Father who gives you the real heavenly bread. God’s bread comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…I myself am the Bread of Life. No one who comes to me shall ever be hungry; no one who believes in me shall ever thirst again.”

The Jews’ ancestors did hunger again. Every morning the manna reappeared. It did not last.  When you and I eat the “Bread of Life,” when we believe in Jesus and follow God’s will we never hunger or never thirst.  O, the power of the resurrection of the Lord. O, the power and the strength of the Truth Who is God Incarnate, who is the Eternal Word made flesh, who nourishes us in the Eucharist, in the Scriptures, through the Spirit who dwells within the depths of our beings! O, the power and the wisdom and the humility and the love and mercy of our God!