The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Over the last few Sundays, our lectionary has taken us on a leisurely journey through John’s Gospel with passages of scripture that are filled with possibility and fraught with danger. The journey started with the famous feeding of the 5000, and continued through a discussion over whether Jesus would provide more bread – like Moses did in the desert – and then on to Jesus’ claim to be the “Bread from Heaven” and the “Bread of Life” this week. We come to the climax of the conversation where Jesus states in a bold and explicit way that by partaking of His body and His blood they would live forever. Wow and scary, too; no wonder they began to grumble!
This very passage has been the fruit for centuries of theological debate over what Jesus meant, but for me it is all about the relationship of faith in Jesus that the key to life eternal is actually found! In this passage we find an invitation to allow Jesus to so permeate our lives that we in essence feed on Him, and in doing so, He becomes the source of our energy and our power, and if we feed on Him there is abundant life. It is a conversation about relationship, not just a personal relationship where Jesus becomes our buddy, but a relationship in which Jesus’ life defines our life! Jesus is the bread of heaven, the bread of life, and the living bread, the manna sent from God to sustain the lives of all of us, as God’s people. Therefore, if we “feed on Him with thanksgiving,” we find strength and power for living.
Therefore, at least for me, the point here is spiritual not material. It is with our hearts that we truly feed on Jesus, that we draw Him into our lives, and as we do, we find that empowerment needed to live life with boldness rather than fear, with love rather than hate, with hope rather than pessimism.
As Catholics, we have no hope of ever appreciating the strength found in the Eucharist, if we never enter into a true relationship with our Lord. Oh sure, we can gaze at Him in a Monstrance, and we can hold Him in our hands, or even ingest Him into our bodies at Holy Communion, but without a true – living – relationship it will never feed us and empower us or give us the hope for what is one day to come.
May we today draw upon the One who gives us life so that we might live more fully until that great day when we shall finally behold Him – the Bread of Life – face to face.
Monsignor +Jim
📸 Courtesy of heARTworks