First Reading – 1 Kings 19:4-8;
Second Reading – Ephesians 4:30-5:2;
Gospel – John 6:41-51
Clarissa Dickson Wright is a British celebrity chef She and Jennifer Paterson, are best known as the Two Fat Ladies on the British television cooking show of that name. They preached the joys of cooking that accurately, if irreverently, described them both. The show was heavy on humor as well as calories. Avoiding popular low-fat diets, the two fat ladies sought to reclaim traditional home-cooking. They themselves were the best advertisements for their recipes, which usually featured heavy doses of butter and cream. The two fat ladies are part of a growing trend to forget food deprivation and just say yes to bacon. Dieticians now argue that fat-free foods are high in sugar and calories – which explains why people on low-fat or no-fat diets get fat. Gwen Shamblin’s The Weigh Down Diet, which advises using spirituality to avoid overeating, has already sold more than 1.2 million copies to overweight Christians. The bottom line is that people are scrambling like crazy to find the diet that is right for them. — But there is another diet not many people talk about, presented in today’s Gospel: the “Bread of Life Diet.” It’s spiritually high-carb, but offers full nutritional value. Jesus says, “I am the Bread of Life,” and promises that people on his program “will never hunger or thirst again!” These are extravagant claims, like the kind you might find on soy milk or fat-burners. But Jesus can deliver on what he promises.
We are living in a world where people of all races and creeds hunger more for spiritual sustenance than for physical food. In response to the spiritual hunger of people in his own day, Jesus, in today’s Gospel passage from John 6, proclaims Himself to be “the Bread of Life that came down from Heaven.” It is through Jesus, the Bread of Life, that we have access to the Divine life during our earthly pilgrimage to God. The sixth chapter of the Gospel of John which contains Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist begins with Jesus’ miraculous feeding of five thousand hungry listeners in a deserted place to satisfy their bodily hunger. Today’s Gospel describes Jesus’ discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum a day this miraculous wilderness feeding. During the discourse, Jesus reveals that he is the true “Bread of Life that came down from Heaven,” to give life to the world. “Manna” was God’s gift rained down “from Heaven” upon the Chosen People; Jesus, however, is the new and perfect manna as the Incarnate Son of God, literally “come down from Heaven.” This means that the Bread we consume in the Eucharist is more than just a guarantee that one day we’ll have eternal life. This Bread actually gives us a share of that eternal life while we are still on earth. But some of those who had just witnessed Jesus’ ability to supply them with earthly food turned away when Jesus identified His Heavenly Origin as the Divine Source of His miraculous powers.
Jesus’ unique claims: Jesus makes a series of unique claims in today’s Gospel passage: 1) “I am the Living Bread that came down from Heaven.” 2)”I am the Bread of Life.” 3) “The Bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world.” 4)“No one can come to me unless the Father Who sent me draw him.” 5)“I will raise him on the last day.” 6) “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God.” In short, Christ Jesus reveals himself as both God and the “Bread of Life from Heaven,” sent by the Father for our salvation.
The dialogue with the Jews no longer deals with manna, but with Jesus’ very Person: the Revealer bringing us God’s salvation. Although John’s Chapter 6 has no direct reference to the Holy Eucharist, Jesus’ words remind us of the centrality of the Eucharist as the primary source of our spiritual nourishment. Jesus knows quite well that we need both spiritual and physical food for life’s journey. He offers us both. Thus, the meal that we share at the Eucharistic table provides the Food for our journey (“viaticum”). Furthermore, He tells us that this Bread from Heaven is His Flesh, given for the life of the world. The Jews, as well as Jesus’ disciples, understood that the Teacher was speaking literally in telling them His Body was food, a statement that was outrageous and impossible to some hearers. Jesus, however, insisted that His words must be accepted literally, and that His Father would draw men to accept them. Hence, let us accept Jesus as the Heavenly Bread, medicine for the sick soul, nourishment for a wounded spirit, light and strength for a weary mind and the Source of new and eternal Life.
The first reading describes the physical and spiritual hungers experienced by the prophet Elijah. In this reading, the Bread of Life Jesus speaks about is prefigured by the miraculous food with which the angel nourished the Prophet Elijah in the desert to which he had fled from the soldiers Queen Jezebel had sent to kill him. After being nourished by the Lord, Elijah was strengthened for the long journey of “forty days and forty nights” to Mount Horeb [Mt. Sinai], the place where God had given Moses the Ten Commandments.
The second reading presents Christ Jesus, the “Bread of Life,” as a “sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” Paul reminds the Ephesian Christians that, instead of seeking satisfaction in anger, slander, bitterness, and malice, they are to nourish one another with compassion, kindness and mutual forgiveness. It is Faith that strengthens us to live in this way — doing the right thing in our relationships with others — in a world filled with terror and violence and in a Church marked by betrayal and disillusion.
Let us accept the challenge to become bread and drink for others: “You are what you eat?” Let us recognize that Jesus whom we consume in the Holy Eucharist is actually God Who assimilates us into His being. Thus, from Sunday to Saturday we will grow into Jesus as Jesus grows in us, our lives will be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and we will become more like Jesus. In this way, we shall share in the joyous and challenging life of being the Body of Christ for the world – Bread for a hungry world, and Drink for those who thirst for justice, peace, fullness of life, and even eternal life. In other words, the Eucharist challenges us to sacrifice ourselves for others as Christ has done for each of us.
Let us appreciate Christ’s presence in the Holy Eucharist: Since the Holy Eucharist is “the Body and Blood, together with the soul and Divinity, of our Lord, Jesus Christ,” the Sacrament.