19th Sunday of Year B
✠ A reading from the holy Gospel according to John 6:41-51
The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world”
1. For the third consecutive Sunday we continue with Jesus and his discourses on the bread of life. Last Sunday he presented himself as the bread of God that comes down from heaven which gives life to the world. Today he continues the teaching on the same theme. It was difficult for his contemporaries who knew his family background to accept that he came from heaven. They murmured against such claim.
2. Jesus confronted them directly on the point. He tried to assure them that the teaching can only be accepted by those who are inspired and taught by God, those who hear his voice and obey him. No one can come to Jesus if he/she is not drawn by God. By saying this Jesus points to the complexity of his teaching and placed it beyond the world of physical intelligence. The bread that he speaks of has effect beyond the physical world because whoever eats it will be raised up by Jesus on the last day.
3. Difficult as this teaching may sound, Jesus wants his hearers to believe it. He maintained that whoever believes this teaching has eternal life. He reminded them that their fathers ate manna in the desert but still died while he who eats the bread that he would give will never die.
4. Having said this Jesus went a step further to identify the bread with his own flesh. He has been speaking in figures and images but now he has become explicit and direct. All that he has been talking about the bread from heaven has crystalized in his physical person. His flesh is the bread that is to be eaten. In future, during the last supper, just before his arrest, he will take a piece of bread and say:”this is my flesh, take and eat.” With that the teaching on the bread of heaven will become actualized in the Eucharist. We now know that in the Eucharist there is life.
5. If Jesus should reveal his splendor in the Eucharistic Bread and Wine, nobody would accept to minister as a priest and no christian can approach the Eucharist to receive it. But just as he hid his divinity in his humanity during his incarnation so does he hide his divinity in the small host to allow people to come close to him. You certainly believe this teaching on his flesh being the bread of life, that is why you receive him in the Eucharist. Keep the faith and approach him with respect and trust. We all need the Eucharist to have enough strength for our heavenly journey. In today’s first reading (1Kings 19:4-8), the angel told Elijah that if he does not eat, the journey would be too hard. Today, analogously Jesus says the same thing to you. “If you don’t eat my body, you will not make it to eternal life.” But you will never know eternal death if you receive him with faith. He can be trusted to keep his word.
@Vitalis Anaehobi