The Living Bread

Today's Gospel, John 6: 51-58, opens with Jesus saying to Us: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

"I am the living bread."  I left heaven for you. I have come down to earth to be one with you. When I returned to my Father, I left you the Eucharist, myself as "the living bread."  In every Eucharist  you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, a gift I gave to you at the Last Supper when I said to my disciples attending that meal: "This is my body given up for you; take and eat." And with the wine served at that meal, I took it in my sacred hands and, as the High Priest of God, blessed the wine and said to the disciples: "Take and drink; this is the blood of the New Covenant which will be poured out of you." My changing water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana prefigured the Eucharist that I would leave with you in the hands of priests to follow my Way.  To priests, I have given the power at every Catholic Mass to change bread and wine into my body and blood for your spiritual nourishment and to fulfill the promise I made at my Ascension: I will be with you always until the end of time and, in this case, in the Eucharist.  Not only am I with you in the Eucharist, but I reside in the depth of your being and in all of creation. As God, I am everywhere sustaining all in existence, strengthening all, governing all, loving all, comforting all, challenging all and transforming all into the Divine, as My Love knows no end. I will draw all persons and all things to Me.  Your transformation will be complete in eternity and so, too, for everyone else open to the graces I pour out upon you an them from the cross every moment of every day!  Do you believe? Do you trust?"

A Plea for Justice

Again, today's first reading, Habakkuk 1: 12-2:4, is applicable to what is happening in the world of today.  Habakkuk is complaining to the Lord concerning the evil that exists in the world of his day. He says to the Lord, God:  "Are you not from eternity, Lord, my holy God, immortal?  O Lord, you have marked [evil men/women] for judgment, O Rock, you have readied [them] for punishment!  Too pure are your eyes to look upon evil, and the sight of misery you cannot endure. Why, then, do you gaze on the faithless in silence while the wicked man devours one more just than himself?"

Habakkuk's complaint is as true now as in his day.  Evil men and women "devour" others more just than themselves; they are, therefore,  marked for judgment--God's judgment.   The psalmist, in today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 9, reminds that "[t]he Lord sits enthroned forever; he has set up his throne for judgment.  He judges the world with justice; he governs; the people with equity," so unlike humankind's way of judging and governing.  Also, as Habakukk emphasizes:  God's eyes are "too pure...to look upon evil." This is as true today as then."The sight of misery [God] cannot endure" today  any more than in days of old.  The day of judgment will come. God will intervene in God's time and bring justice to this world, creating a new earth and a new heaven where justice will reign and evil will be no more!

Regarding Habakkuk's complaint, God responds as follows: Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily. For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. The rash man/[woman] has no integrity; but the just [person], because of his [her] faith, shall live."  That promise will be fulfilled!  I believe that!  What about you?

The House that God Built

In today’s first reading, 2 Sam 7: 1-17, David wants to build the Lord a house of cedar.  Earlier, when David voiced that desire, Nathan encouraged him to go ahead: “The Lord is with you.”      However, that was not God’s will for David. He said to Nathan: “Go, tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Should you build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day on which I led the children of Israel out of Egypt to the present, but I have been going about in a tent under cloth…[D]id I ever utter a word to any one of the judges whom I charged to tend my people Israel, to ask: Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”  The house that God intended to build was not made of material things. He built and is building the Body of Christ through His Son Jesus.  God has chosen to dwell within each one of us, the Temples of the Holy Spirit and where the Holy Spirit is, so, too, is the Father and the Son, as they are one God but three divine persons.  God’s plan was to rise up a son from David’s line and “make his royal throne firm forever,” a throne in heaven from whence God reigns as King of heaven and earth.  May the Temple that each of us is give glory to God, whose will endures forever!  See you all in heaven, the inheritance God has secured for all those who believe in Jesus Christ, His Son and our brother,  and who repent of their sins and accept God’s gift of salvation!

"Be not afraid; I am with you"

The Lord said to St. Paul: “Be not afraid. I am with you” (Acts 18: 9-18).  When brought before the tribunal, his accusers said “This man is inducing people to worship God contrary to the law” (Acts 18¨9-18). The Lord did not take away the reality that Jewish leaders saw him as a traitor of their faith and believed he would destroy their long-held traditions and had to be stopped. What the Lord did promise was that He would be at Paul’s side, just like the Father was always with Jesus in the sufferings He endured for our salvation.  Paul clung to that belief and never lost sight of the joy that would be his for all eternity if he persevered in the faith until the end of his pilgrimage and mission here on earth. 

The Lord has made the same promise to you and me.  No matter what tragedies or traumas, no matter what losses we endure in life, Jesus is at our side, as is His mother. She is as much with us as she was with her Son when he was being tortured to death for His faithfulness to the Father’s will.

Mary and Jesus did not escape life’s horrors. Neither will you and I.  However, like them, a divine power and an eternal light will be with us, giving us the strength to endure for the Lord’s sake and transforming the darkness around us into light.  In the end we will inherit an eternal home where there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more evil. Sometimes that  trust in God’s promise will be all we have to cling to when we are experiencing  this life’s tragic realities, no matter what those may be or from whom they are handed down to us. I believe that, do you?

God's Promise to make us "exceedingly fertile"

In today’s first reading, Gen. 17: 3-9, God  tells Abram that he is to be the father of a host of nations, that God will make him “exceedingly fertile”, that “kings shall come from him”--that he shall be a royal kingdom--that he and his descendants will be given the land in which he was then staying.  Recall that God had asked Abram to leave the land of Ur and go to the land “that I will show you.”  He also asked Abraham (his name was changed when God established his covenant with him) to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, and Abraham obeyed  (God provided a ram instead). Abram trusted God, unlike our first parents, Adam and Eve.  Abraham, truly, is our father of faith and a model of trust.

The promises of the Old Covenant extend into the New Covenant established at the foot of the cross when Jesus entrusted Mary to John and John to Mary: "Woman, behold our son; son, behold your mother." Jesus, from the cross, is asking each of us to be mother, brother and sister to one another, to care for one another, to be responsible to and for each other. That means that no one should go without food, shelter, or land or the means to raise and provide for a family.  Everyone should be thriving and be exceedingly fruitful.

We await the fulfillment of the promise that the Royal Kingdom of God will be firmly established here on this earth. We believe that one day we truly will relate to each other as brothers and sisters, as one family in Christ Jesus, as men and women of faith, as Jesus prayed the night before His passion: I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one--as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me (John 17:21).  That day of prostrating ourselves before the Lord in deep faith, as Abram did, is coming--all will be one in Christ Jesus, our Lord, all Christ's enemies will be put underfoot. We also believe, as did Abraham, that God will make us--our country, our nation, all the nations of the world, all the peoples of the world-- “exceedingly fertile” and that we will come to the point of distributing this world’s goods equally to all people. God says to us, as He said to Abram:  “You will be my people and I will be your God.”   Do I believe it? do you?