REFLECTION – 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

 

 

THEME: Even life at its best can at times put us on a road that is rather difficult, wearing, demanding.  It is true, God does not request peak performances of us every day, and at every step along life’s highway, but what He does have a right to look for and find in us always is fidelity and perseverance.

 

God indeed nourishes us bodily and spiritually.  God feeds our body, and nourishes our mind and soul.  Food for the flesh and nourishment for the spirit, have only one purpose – to make us a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.  Christ, in Word and Eucharist, is the unfailing energy moving us to this end.

 

INTRODUCTION: With the manna, miraculously provided in the desert, the Israelites would not have survived.  Without the food providentially brought him as he slept the sleep of exhausting, Elijah almost surely would not have reached his goal, Horeb.  Without the sacred food of the Eucharist, it will be well-nigh impossible for our earthly pilgrimage to come to its rightful goal, heaven.

 

Point 1: Christ taught on any occasion, sometime at great physical sacrifice.  At times Christ found it very difficult to escape the crowds, to have at least some privacy.  Though these situations must have been physically wearying, yet he resigned himself to them, seeing them as marvelous chances to bring souls to a greater commitment to his kingdom.  Elijah was not going to allow physical weariness to keep him from pursuing his objective, and God rewarded his fidelity.  Many times Christ’s weariness must have been even greater than that of his prophets of old, yet he would not allow it to stand between him and his sheep, the souls he had come to save.

 

Point 2: Christ used the feeding of the multitude as a teaching occasion.  More than five thousand persons had been miraculously fed in a place from which they would have found it difficult to return home without suffering hunger along the road.  Naturally they wanted to see Jesus again because, as he himself told them, they had seen signs and had been given as much bread as they wanted.  Christ immediately used this propitious moment to tell them they should work for the food that lasts to eternal life.  But the people were not about to be side-tracked, so to speak!  They reminded this great prophet that their forebears had also been fed in the desert with the manna, as if to say that they had a right so such prodigies / such miracles.  Christ, in turn, reminded them that it had not been Moses, but God the Father who gave the manna to their ancestors, and that god’s gifts are just that – gifts, totally undeserved.

 

Point 3: He led the Jews from manna to Eucharist.  Once the point about the manna had been made clear, then Jesus seized this historical moment to prepare these minds and hearts for the gift of the Eucharist.  And in this famed discourse (6th Chapter of John) he does so with beautiful and attractive delicateness.  First he tells them that he is the bread of Life.  He has come from heaven as the incarnate Son of God, not to do his own will but the will of the One who sent Him.  Then he makes an astounding claim: “Whoever see the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.”   Here Jesus is asking for faith as the Son of God who has assumed our human nature; this is a vital prelude to a later point in this same discourse, when he will request faith in him as the Eucharistic Son of God.

 

Conclusion:  There is no clash between reason and faith, it is only that our human frailty makes it rather difficult for belief to lay aside doubts and surrender our minds to Christ in full trust.  There is no intrinsic struggle between our natural and ours supernatural life, but certainly the former often holds out for its own ‘rights’ to the detriment of the latter.  And though there is no essential distinction between temporal and eternal life (at least for one redeemed by Christ’s blood and living in grace, for then he has in a certain real sense already begun the eternal life), yet how often our temporal existence is anything  but a proper prelude to the life that never ends.

 

 

QUESTIONS THAT MAY LEAD TO OTHER THOUGHTS / REFLECTIONS / DISCUSSION

 

  1. How can the Eucharist serve Catholic Christians in being prophets like Elijah, and above all like the prophet, Christ, in witnessing to the great issues of our contemporary world?

 

  1. How can we Catholics in particular better employ the Eucharist in all its marvelous facets to effect a more fraternal union with our separated Christian friends, and to hasten the day when our union in faith will allow our union in Holy Communion?

 

Our Gospel passage (John 6: 41-51) shows the reasons why the Jews rejected Jesus, and in rejecting him, rejected eternal life:

 

  1. They judged things by human values and by external standards. Their reaction in face of the claim of Jesus was to produce the fact that he was a carpenter’s son and that they had seen him grow up in Nazareth. They were unable to understand how one who was a tradesman and who came from a poor home could possibly be a special messenger from God. A shattering mistake because they judged Jesus by externals.

 

That is what the Jews did with Jesus.  We must have a care that we never neglect a message from God because we despise or do not care for the messenger. A man would hardly refuse a cheque for 1,000 British pounds because it happened to be enclosed in an envelope which did not conform to the most aristocratic standards of notepaper.  God has many messengers. His greatest message came through a Galilean carpenter, and for that very reason the Jews disregarded it.

 

  1. The Jews argued with each other. They were so taken up with their private arguments that it never struck them to refer the decision to God. They were exceedingly eager to let everyone know what they thought about the matter; but not in the least anxious to know what God thought.  It might well be that sometimes in a court or committee, when every man is desirous of pushing his opinion down his neighbour’s throat, we would be better to be quiet and ask God what he thinks and what he wants us to do. After all it does not matter so very much what we think; but what God thinks matters intensely; and we so seldom take steps to find it out.

 

  1. The Jews listened, but they did not learn. There are different kinds of listening.  There is the listening of criticism; there is the listening of resentment; there is the listening of superiority; there is the listening of indifference; there is the listening of the man who listens only because for the moment he cannot get the chance to speak.  The only listening that is worthwhile is that which hears and learns; and that is the only way to listen to God.

 

  1. The Jews resisted the drawing of God. Only those accept Jesus whom God draws to him. Always there is this idea of resistance. God can draw men, but man’s resistance can defeat God’s pull.

 

Jesus is the bread of life; which means that he is the essential for life; therefore to refuse the invitation and command of Jesus is to miss life and to die.  The Rabbis of Jesus’ time had a saying: “The generation in the wilderness has no part in the life to come.”  In the old story in Numbers the people who cravenly refused to brave the dangers of the Promised Land after the report of the scouts, were condemned to wander in the wilderness until they died.  Because they would not accept the guidance of God they were forever shut out from the Promised Land.  The Rabbis believed that the fathers who died in the wilderness not only missed the Promised Land, but also missed the life to come.  To refuse the offer of Jesus is to miss life in this world and in the world to come; whereas to accept his offer is to find real life in this world and glory in the world to come.

 

PONDER THESE QUESTIONS

 

  1. The crowd murmured when Jesus said he was the bread that came down from heaven because they knew his father and mother. Was the problem in the “knowing” or in the “believing”?

 

  1. Does what you think you know sometimes get in the way of new ideas the Holy Spirit might present to you? Do you have the corner on this kind of problem? Where else might it lurk?

 

 

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Readings

Reading I: 1 Kings 19:4-8

Responsorial Psalm: 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

Reading II: Ephesians 4:30-5:2

Gospel: John 6:41-51

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