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December 14, 2008

December 15th Holy Spirit Novena
Scripture selection is Day 9 Period II.

The Novena Rosary Mysteries  
for December 15th are Luminous.

 

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December 14, 2008

  

                From Fr. Joe's Homily Book - Cycle B

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 26, 2006

INTRODUCTION – (Hosea 2, 16b. 17b. 21-22; II Cor. 3, 1b-6; Mark 2, 18-22) Our first reading today from the prophet Hosea goes back to a time of great material prosperity in Israel but also great spiritual collapse. God’s people had forgotten their God and were ignoring the commandments. The image the prophet uses here is the image of marriage. In this image, God is represented as the faithful husband while Israel is his unfaithful spouse. Israel’s unfaithfulness was in turning her affection and adoration to false gods. Although God’s people were unfaithful, God would still be faithful. Even if he had to strip them of all their wealth and all their false gods and lead them into a desert, which he would do, he would do so in order to try to win them back to himself.

The reading leads into the gospel where Jesus uses the image of married love to answer a question about fasting. Implied in his answer is that he is the bridegroom, Israel’s God.

HOMILY – God uses many different images to describe his love for us. One image God uses frequently is that of marriage. God wants to be close to us and wants us to be close to him in fidelity and joy.

In our gospel, some people, perhaps disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees, came to Jesus with a question about fasting. This question was not about the one day of fast that was required by law on the Day of Atonement. What is at issue here was a pious practice that the Pharisees and disciples of John the Baptist had of fasting in anticipation and preparation for the coming of the kingdom of God. Jesus’ answer, in effect, was saying that there was no need for his disciples to fast since the kingdom had already come, in Jesus. Using the image of a wedding, Jesus compares himself to a bridegroom, a symbol that God used in the Old Testament for himself. Jesus implies that he is God among us who has come to reveal God’s kingdom to us. He went on to tell the people who were questioning him that he would not always be among his people in a way that they could see him. “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast…” In this statement the gospel is telling us that when we fast now, which we are invited to do beginning this Wednesday, it’s not for the same reason that the Jews did it, in anticipation and preparation for God’s coming to us. The bridegroom, our God, has come to us. We fast and sacrifice now in order to open ourselves more to his presence.

Our spiritual lives go in two directions; on the one hand we are called to celebrate because God is with us in Jesus (and the most perfect way we can celebrate this is in the Eucharist). On the other hand, however, we are required to discipline ourselves and make sacrifices because we know we have a lot of room to grow in order to be closer to our God. And so we have periods like Lent to help us grow and increase in God’s love and grace.

There have been times in the past when I had just finished the consecration at Mass. As I looked at the host, I thought how simple this is: just say a few words and such a great miracle occurs; bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. With just a few words Christ gives himself to all of us as our food and our drink. It seems almost too simple. [And for some it is too simple. They expect God to do things in a more dramatic, a more majestic way and they consequently miss the simple manner by which God chooses to act.] But as I thought of this simple miracle, I thought Christ must really want to be here with us, he must really want to give himself to us – that he made it all so simple.

In using the imagery of marriage in our readings today, God is speaking to us of his love. He is asking for our love. God has shown his love by taking on our flesh, by becoming human like us in every way except sin. He has shown us his love by dying for us, by not giving up on us, even when we give up on ourselves or give up on him. He has shown his love by sharing his Spirit with us and by giving himself to us in the Eucharist. He has shown his love by giving us hope that we will live forever with him in eternal joy if we follow the way he has shown us.

Let us praise his faithfulness and love and ask his help to respond with greater love.

 

 

Rita received this prayer on December 27, 1995.

 


  

A Prayer before the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

    Let me be a holy sacrifice and unite with God in the sacrament of His greatest love.

    I want to be one in Him in this act of love, where He gives Himself to me and I give myself as a sacrifice to Him. Let me be a holy sacrifice as I become one with Him in this my act of greatest love to Him.

    Let me unite with Him more, that I may more deeply love Him. May I help make reparation to His adorable Heart and the heart of His Mother, Mary. With greatest love, I offer myself to You and pray that You will accept my sacrifice of greatest love. I give myself to You and unite in Your gift of Yourself to me. Come and possess my soul.

    Cleanse me, strengthen me, heal me. Dear Holy Spirit act in the heart of Mary to make me more and more like Jesus.

    Father, I offer this my sacrifice, myself united to Jesus in the Holy Spirit to You. Help me to love God more deeply in this act of my greatest love.

    Give me the grace to grow in my knowledge, love and service of You and for this to be my greatest participation in the Mass. Give me the greatest graces to love You so deeply in this Mass, You who are so worthy of my love.

-God's Blue Book, December 27, 1995

 

Rita received this prayer on January 17, 1994.


  Prayer for Union with Jesus

Come to me, Lord, and possess my soul. Come into my heart and permeate my soul. Help me to sit in silence with You and let You work in my heart.

    I am Yours to possess. I am Yours to use. I want to be selfless and only exist in You. Help me to spoon out all that is me and be an empty vessel ready to be filled by You. Help me to die to myself and live only for You. Use me as You will. Let me never draw my attention back to myself. I only want to operate as You do, dwelling within me.

    I am Yours, Lord. I want to have my life in You. I want to do the will of the Father. Give me the strength to put aside the world and let You operate my very being. Help me to act as You desire. Strengthen me against the distractions of the devil to take me from Your work.

    When I worry, I have taken my focus off of You and placed it on myself. Help me not to give in to the promptings of others to change what in my heart You are making very clear to me. I worship You, I adore You and I love You. Come and dwell in me now.

-God's Blue Book, January 17, 1994

   

 

 

Rita received this prayer on February 25, 1998.

 

A Prayer for Intimacy with the Lamb, the Bridegroom of the Soul

     Oh Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world, come and act on my soul most intimately. I surrender myself, as I ask for the grace to let go, to just be as I exist in You and You act most intimately on my soul. You are the Initiator. I am the soul waiting Your favors as You act in me. I love You. I adore You. I worship You. Come and possess my soul with Your Divine Grace, as I experience You most intimately.

 - Ash Wednesday, February 25, 1998

 

 

 

 

 

From the Mass Book

January 2, 1997

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen."

"The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."

God pours out His grace in this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is the greatest gift when God gives Himself to us.

We share with God His life, given to us abundantly in the Mass.

He gives Himself to us, and we give ourselves to Him. The great love affair between God and man: His Holy Mass.

The priest is another Christ to us. It is Christ present, through the priest, celebrating the Mass. We must see Christ in the priest, see Him celebrate the Mass, see His beautiful brown hair, His gentle face, see Him, Our Savior. This Jesus Christ that came was born an infant and gave Himself to His death on the cross that we would share His life. See Him now in the Mass, giving Himself in the greatest gift of all. He gives us His divine love and His divine life.

Oh, we thank You for Your life. We know He died and rose and gave us a sharing in His holy life. His life is now abundantly poured, as a fountain to us, especially in the Mass.

Then we hear His Word. Let the Word of God penetrate our being. Let us feel this Living Word of God. As a two-edged sword, it comes forth with such conviction and love and it penetrates the souls of the faithful with such love. It is food indeed, food for our soul.

He is the Good Shepherd. He speaks to us. He gives us all we want. "There is nothing I shall want." (The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need. Ps. 23:1).

He gives us green pastures, and His water pours out and refreshes us. He outpours His grace as a fountain to feed us with His life.

He is a just God, good and kind, all loving, for He is love. We want for nothing for He outpours His love and His life to us in the Mass. We feast on His Body and Blood and are fed with His Word. We become one in Him and He shares Himself with us.

It is through the Mass celebrated by the hands of a holy pries that we will experience the Mass the way Christ intends. These writings are insights which hopefully will help lead you to the spring of life-giving water, the fountain of love and life He outpours in the Mass.

There will be a new earth when men will see with the light of seven suns. They will know God. A people walking in darkness will see a great light. They will no longer be blind, they will be enlightened, they will love God with the greatest love in the Mass. They will feast on His Body and Blood and will be united as one body in His holy Church through His life given to us in the Eucharist.

We will drink copiously from the fountain of grace which He pours out in the Mass. We will be filled with His love, absorbed with the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and feasting on His divine life.

We see with the vision of God. We partake in such a union with God. We see with the light the Spirit gives to us. The priest celebrates the Mass and we know God with such an intense knowing in this union. We are saturated with His life flowing from the hands of His consecrated priest.

And I look at Him, the priest, and I see Jesus there. I see Him giving Himself to me. I see the new and Holy City. I see with such clarity the great gift that God gives to us in the Mass!

We learn how to love in the Mass, for we unite to God. He gives us such an intimate sharing in His divine love that we carry His love out to the world. In this union we know His loving to an intense degree and we carry this love out to others. We share in an intense way in His divine act of loving. He, Who is Love, gives Himself to us and we are absorbed in His love and we know intensely how God loves. We are filled with love for God and for each other, for, in the oneness He is loving through us. He gives us lights into His loving capacity and we know His loving power in an intensity we did not know before.

We then pray. We offer up our intentions for this Mass. It is now we who intercede to Him to outpour His grace on us and help us with these intentions.

We pray for this reign of peace when the Sacred Heart of Jesus will reign and the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph and men will fervently love and adore God with burning love. We pray for all souls and the Church and we beg for His help, His love, His grace.

We offer ourselves as a sacrifice. We offer the bread that will become the Bread of Life.

The priest mixes the water and the wine and we realize how His Divinity mixes with our humanity.

We offer the wine that will become our spiritual drink--His Blood.

I give myself to Him and I beg to be cleansed of my sins with the washing of the hands.

"May the Lord accept the sacrifice of your hands for the praise and glory of His name, for our good and the good of all His Church."

We ask Him to accept the gifts we want to give Him, we give Him thanks, we lift up our hearts in thanks and praise and we sing out:

"Holy, Holy God, of power and might..." we sing Him praise and thank Him, "Oh, God we love thee so much."

My heart is so filled with such awe. I cry because I love Him so much.

Every word in the Mass, I love. The priest consecrates the Host and changes it into the Body and Blood of Christ. Hear Christ say to us: "This is My Body", "This is My Blood".

Oh, it makes me cry for I am so struck with awe at what happens at the Consecration. I unite in the oneness with the priest, with Christ and with all present, with heaven and earth. I am one in that moment, united in the sacrifice of Christ giving Himself to the Father.

This is the moment when I unite in such oneness with Christ in the purity of Mary's heart. I give myself as a sacrifice. I offer myself to the Father.

The Father looks down and He sees us united to His Son's Sacrifice. It is in this oneness that His grace is outpoured on us, that we die to that which is not like Him and that the Holy Spirit works in the heart of Mary and fills us with His life.

I am in ecstasy as I realize more and more the great gift of love that God gives us in His holy Mass. I am taken to such heights, being wrapped in the presence of God. It is rapture, this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

It is a great gift, experiencing this intense presence of the Almighty God: Through Him, With Him, and In Him.

We pray to the Father the prayer as Jesus taught us and beg, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

We pray: "For the Kingdom, the power and the glory are Yours, now and forever."

We beg for peace in our hearts. We share this peace with one another. Then we beg of the Lamb of God. I want to get down to the ground and beg for His grace, mercy, and forgiveness for our sins.

Please, God, I see us as a sinful people. I want the grace and mercy to flow abundantly.

He raises the Host and says: "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, happy are those who are called to His supper."

We respond: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word and I shall be healed."

I receive the Almighty God in Communion. All I want is Him. Oh, God, I want You, I adore You, I worship You, I love You.

Oh, for this moment when God gives Himself to me. Oh, God, words do not express this time--this intense presence of You within my being. Oh, sweet Savior, I love You!

You share Yourself so intimately with me. You imprint on my soul a knowing of Your Divine Being that is so intimate in this Communion when You give Yourself to me.

Oh, let our hearts be open to His grace that we may know this great gift more, that we will partake more fully in this greatest act of love with Divinity.

He shares Himself with us, the Almighty God, in such oneness. This is the greatest way to bind us with each other, to unite with each other in the Mass and Communion.

And so I sing the love of God, the love of His Mass. I beg you to pray for the grace that He can teach you in these writings about His most intimate love affair with man, the gift of Himself--the gift He gives us in the Mass.

The Holy Sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary, sacramentally-made-present in the Mass when He gives Himself to us with the greatest love!

And what does He ask in return? He asks that we love one another, that we give Him the glory, the thanksgiving, the adoration that is His due as the Almighty God.

He sends us forth with His blessing to share His most intimate love with all. We go forth as other Christs in the world. For He is alive this day and He lives in us and He gives His love to others through us. We act as channels of His life to one another.

The Mass is the richest source of His life. His life flows through the body, the Church, especially through the sacraments and the Mass.

Oh Jesus, from the fountain of life that pours forth from your pierced Heart, give us holy priests whose hearts are consecrated to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary to celebrate the Mass--that there is such oneness between the priest and Christ that His grace will flow copiously.

We thirst for the fountain of life pouring forth from the pierced Heart of Christ. It is His life we seek and find in the Church. It is His love we want and we experience the greatest love affair with God in the Mass.

These books on the Mass are accounts of my intimate love affair with our Almighty God. Many experiences were enlightenments I received in the Mass.

I strongly advise all to pray, to say the Holy Spirit Prayer, the consecration prayers, and the Prayer before the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, before Mass.

This book is the journey into the red room, the inner chamber of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, through the gateway, the pure and Immaculate Heart of His Mother.

It is in the Mass we give ourselves in such love to our Holy God. He gives Himself to us and we give ourselves to Him.

end of January 2, 1997

 

 

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From Fr. Joe's Homilies - Cycle B

 

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
 

Job 38: 1, 8-11

    Then from the heart of the tempest Yehweh gave Job his answer. He said:

Who pent up the sea behind closed doors
    when it leapt tumultuous from the womb,
when I wrapped it in a robe of mist
    and made black clouds its swaddling bands;
when I cut the place I had decreed for it
    and imposed gates and a bolt?
'Come so far,' I said, 'and no further;
    here your proud waves must break!'

 

2 Corinthians 5: 14-17

For the love of Christ overwhelms us when we consider that if one man died for all, then all have died; his purpose in dying for all humanity was that those who live should live not any more for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life. 

    From now onwards, then, we will not consider anyone by human standards: even if we were once familiar with Christ according to human standards, we do not know him in that way any longer. So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone and a new being is there to see.

   

Mark 4: 35-41

With the coming of evening that same day, he said to them, ‘Let us cross over to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind they took him, just as he was, in the boat; and there were other boats with him. Then it began to blow a great gale and the waves were breaking into the boat so that it was almost swamped. But he was in the stern, his head on the cushion, asleep. They woke him and said to him, ‘Master, do you not care? We are lost!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Quiet now! Be calm!’ And the wind dropped, and there followed a great calm. Then he said to them, ‘Why are you so frightened? Have you still no faith?’ They were overcome with awe and said to one another, ‘Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.’

   

June 25, 2006 

(Job 38, 1. 8-11; 2 Cor. 5, 14-17; Mark 4, 35-41) Four hunters were out tramping through the woods looking for deer.  Suddenly a large buck jumped out of the bushes and they all fired at once.  The deer fell down dead, but when they examined it it was only hit by one bullet.  They couldn’t’ figure out whose bullet had killed the deer and while they were arguing over it a game warden came by.  They asked him to help them figure out who brought down the deer.  After examining it he asked whether there was a preacher in the group.  One of the men said he was and the game warden said the deer was his.  They were amazed at his answer and asked how he had figured that out.  The game warden said, well the deer was killed with only one bullet and it went in one ear and out the other. 

God did not reveal the concept of reward and punishment, heaven and hell, in the next life until about a century or two before the time of Christ.  Prior to that time they thought that when a person died, the soul went to a place somewhere down below the surface of the earth called Sheol. Sheol was a place where nothing much ever happened.  The spirit of a person experienced neither happiness nor unhappiness there.  At the same time, God’s people firmly believed that God was just and fair, that God rewarded good people and punished bad people.  Because they had no clue that reward or punishment could occur after this life, they logically concluded that, since God is fair, God rewards us in this life if we’re good or punishes us in this life if we’re bad.  The logical conclusion to that kind of theology is that if we look at a person and see they are prosperous, healthy, happy, and blessed in numerous ways, that is a sign they are a really virtuous and holy person.  Conversely, if a person is having problems, if they are poor, or suffer from physical sickness, or suffer in some other way, they must be being punished for some evil in their life, even if they themselves are unaware of anything evil they might have done. 

But they were smart enough to know things didn’t always work that way.  Sometimes bad things happened to good people while other people got away with murder.  These everyday realities must have caused a real crisis of faith for many good people at that time.  The book of Job tries to explore this dilemma.  Job is a very holy and good man.  Even God admits it at the beginning of the book.  He is blessed in every way.  But by a few sudden tragedies he loses his crops, his livestock, his lands, the respect of his peers, and all of his sons and daughters.  His wife and a few faithful friends kept telling him he must deserve all this for something he did.  Most of us are familiar with his initial view of what was happening to him when he declared: “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.”  People often speak of the “patience of Job,” but even his patience wore thin and he started asking for answers, or rather I should say he started demanding answers as to why he was suffering all these things. 

God’s response to his demands came in the form of questions, questions mostly about the mysteries of nature, questions like we hear in today’s first reading such as “who has power over the sea and the waves.”  These questions go on for four chapters as God asks Job how the stars were put in place, how the clouds are formed, what causes the wind to blow, who feeds the fish in the depths of the sea, or how do the animals in the wild live. These questions were meant to lead the readers of the book of Job to a sense of trust that God is in control of all things. Even if we don’t understand or know what he’s doing, he knows, and we just have to trust him. 

Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus we have been given more insights, more answers, more help to our faith and to the mystery of suffering than Job was able to come up with.  And yet, many of us still tend to think about life the way that people long before Jesus did. At least subconsciously we think if we are good, God should make life pleasant for us and if other people are bad (not us of course!) God should not let them get by with it.  Sometimes that’s the way things happen.  A good life does have many rewards and an evil life usually catches up with a person, but it doesn’t always happen right away. And when life doesn’t go the way we think it should, our faith is shaken. We don’t understand how God works.  We are somewhat like the apostles in today’s gospel, when storms come up we cry out, “Lord, don’t you care that we are going to drown?” 

In each Sunday’s liturgy, in Communion, in our prayers, God gives us as many answers as he thinks we can understand right now. We have the good news that God loves us so much that he sent his only Son to teach us, to heal us and to suffer and die for us.  We have the resurrection which gives us hope that sin and evil and suffering will not have the last word.  We have the Eucharist which tells us that in our journey through life God will not abandon us, but will always be with us to strengthen us and unite us closely with himself.  The answers we get, like the answers Job got, continue to require us to have faith. Jesus asked the apostles in today’s gospel, “Why are you so terrified?  Why are you so lacking in faith?”  Jesus asks us those same questions today.  As I meditated on this gospel, I wondered how the apostles might have responded if Jesus had asked those questions before he calmed the storm.  Think about that for a moment.  If he did, do you think they would have heard him? It probably would have gone in one ear and out the other as they would have been too worried about the storm.  It’s easy for anyone to see we should have trusted more after danger has past, but our Lord wants us to hear this question also when the storm is raging and the waves are high.  God wants us to know he is still in control, even though we may wonder, “how can he be?”

 

 

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
 

1 Kings 19: 4-8

He himself went on into the desert, a day’s journey, and sitting under a furze bush wished he were dead. ‘Yahweh,’ he said, ‘I have had enough. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’ Then he lay down and went to sleep. Then all of a sudden an angel touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked round, and there at his head was a scone baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. But the angel of Yahweh came back a second time and touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat, or the journey will be too long for you.’ So he got up and ate and drank, and strengthened by that food he walked for forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, God’s mountain.

 

Ephesians 4: 30 5: 2

do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God who has marked you with his seal, ready for the day when we shall be set free. Any bitterness or bad temper or anger or shouting or abuse must be far removed from you—as must every kind of malice. Be generous to one another, sympathetic, forgiving each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ

As God’s dear children, then, take him as your pattern, and follow Christ by loving as he loved you, giving himself up for us as an offering and a sweet–smelling sacrifice to God.

 

 

John 6, 41-51

Meanwhile the Jews were complaining to each other about him, because he had said, ‘I am the bread that has come down from heaven.’ They were saying, ‘Surely this is Jesus son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know. How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven?” ’ Jesus said in reply to them, ‘Stop complaining to each other.

‘No one can come to me
unless drawn by the Father who sent me,
and I will raise that person up
    on the last day.
It is written in the prophets:
They will all be taught by God;
everyone who has listened to the Father,
and learnt from him,
comes to me.
Not that anybody has seen the Father,
except him who has his being from God:
he has seen the Father.
In all truth I tell you,
everyone who believes has eternal life.
 I am the bread of life.
 Your fathers ate manna in the desert
 and they are dead;
 but this is the bread
    which comes down from heaven,
 so that a person may eat it and not die.
 I am the living bread
    which has come down from heaven.
 Anyone who eats this bread 
    will live for ever;
 and the bread that I shall give
 is my flesh, for the life of the world.’

   

August 13, 2006

INTRODUCTION – (1 Kings 19, 4-8; Ephesians 4, 30 – 5, 2; John 6, 41-51) Eight hundred fifty years before Christ there lived in Israel a queen with an evil reputation named Jezebel.  Among her many goals in life was to eliminate the Israelite religion.  There lived also in Israel at this time the prophet Elijah whose life was dedicated to serving the one true God, Yahweh.  Naturally these two would clash.  In a very dramatic and powerful confrontation on Mt. Carmel, a place now known as Haifa, the prophet Elijah worked a miracle that demonstrated that Yahweh was truly God, while the gods of Jezebel were nothing at all.  Jezebel was not a happy loser in this confrontation, and she sent her army after Elijah in order to kill him.  Elijah took off running.  Today’s first reading finds him in the southern part of the Holy Land, hungry, tired and depressed.  But God took care of him and gave him special food that strengthened him to be able to walk for 40 days through desert wildness to Mt. Horeb, the mountain in the Sinai Peninsula where God gave Moses the 10 Commandments. 

This passage has been chosen because of the special food God gave Elijah.  The passage connects with the gospel where Jesus tells us he is the bread that will strengthen us on our journey through life and into eternal life. 

HOMILY – Our readings today are about food, something that is near and dear to all of us.  It’s near and dear to all of us not only because it’s something we enjoy, but something we need to have in order to live. 

Two weeks ago the gospel was about Jesus feeding a great crowd - over 5000 people with five barley loaves and a couple of dried fish.  After he fed them, they wanted to make him their king and why wouldn’t they?  But Jesus came to give us something more than free food.  And so he got away from this crowd that were intent on making him a king until they settled down.  When they found him again, he told them you’re looking for me not because you’ve seen signs (indicating they couldn’t see more deeply into what Jesus did), but you’re looking for me simply because you’ve had your stomach filled.  He came, he told them, in order to give them food that would bring them eternal life.  Of course they wanted that too.  So he told them that food was himself: “I am the bread of life…  I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  That was not easy for them to swallow (if you’ll pardon the expression).  In spite of the great miracle he had worked, they failed to believe in him.  But he did not back down. 

If you read through this section of St. John you will see there are two different ways to understand this expression that Jesus is the bread of life.  We Catholics almost automatically presume that the idea that Jesus is the bread of life means the Eucharist, and it does, but it means something that precedes the Eucharist.  The first way to understand this idea is to understand that Jesus feeds us through his word and our acceptance of that word.  In other words, Jesus is the bread of life because we believe what he teaches us.  This is one big reason such a large part of the Mass is dedicated to hearing God’s word.  It is through hearing and believing that we are fed: our mind is fed, our spirit is fed, our heart is fed.  God’s word influences our thoughts, our attitudes, our actions, the way we treat others, our attitude toward God and toward ourselves.  This openness of our mind and heart to his word is a source of eternal life for us. 

As we read on through this chapter, the idea that Jesus is the bread of life in the Eucharist begins to be developed.  It will be developed in the next couple of weeks, but it is introduced here with the words: “the bread that I will give is my flesh.”  I would like to digress here for a moment.  St. John devotes a lot of his gospel to the Last Supper, but he does not tell us about the institution of the Eucharist.  It is in this place that he does.  Notice the words “the bread that I will give is my flesh…”  Notice how closely the words parallel what we hear at the consecration: “this (the bread) is my body.”  The bread that I will give is my flesh.”  As I said, we will hear Jesus say this more emphatically in the next couple of weeks, so emphatically and clearly in fact that those who had been ready to make him a king said he was crazy and they walked away. 

Modern science has discovered many things about food.  It has told us about foods that are healthy and foods that are unhealthy, foods that can help heal us and foods that contribute to sickness, foods that can even affect our moods and our energy.  We’ve learned from science about vitamins and minerals, but we know we can’t just stop eating and just take one big vitamin pill.  Scientists tell us there are still elements hidden in food that affect our health and well-being positively or negatively that they haven’t discovered yet.  Although we’ve all seen vitamin pills, vitamins themselves are tiny molecules that we can’t see with the unaided eye.  We just have to take it on faith that they’re in the vitamin pills we take or the food that nutritionists tell us is healthy food. 

We have to take it on faith, too, that there is a lot in Jesus’ teaching and his sacraments that we cannot see and will never see in this world with our eyes.  We can only believe what our ears tell us.  When we look at the host we see what looks like bread.  What we hear, though, are the words of Jesus, “The bread that I will give is my flesh.”  Jesus is the bread of life.  Believing in him, living according to his word and receiving his sacraments are life-giving.  He gives us a life that is abundant, a life that is eternal, a life that will bring greater joy that we can now imagine.  We thank the Lord for this gift of divine nourishment he gives us today.

 

 

                                               

  

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