The Universal Church celebrates Sunday, August 04, 2024, as the eighteenth Sunday in ordinary time, year B. In the Entrance Antiphon, we pray: “God, come to my help, Lord, quickly give me assistance. You are the one who helps me and sets me free. Lord, do not be long in coming. Amen.”
The Gospel of this day’s Mass refers to Jesus as the Bread of Life. Just as we need material food to survive physically, so too do we need Jesus Christ as the spiritual food for our spiritual survival. In the first reading, from Exodus, the hungry Israelites receive food from heaven in the form of manna through the intercession of Moses. It is this same gift of manna that the people of Jesus’ time expect from him. In the second reading, Saint Paul continues to stress unity among Ephesians, urging them to remain united by imitating and putting on Christ. In the course of this Eucharist, let us pray for the grace to follow Christ, not for material gain, but for spiritual nourishment because Christ is the way to the Father.
First Reading: Exodus 16: 2-4. 12-15.
The whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, "Would that we had died at the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!" Then the Lord said to Moses, "I will now rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion; thus will I test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not. "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them: In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread, so that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God." In the evening quail came up and covered the camp. In the morning a dew lay all about the camp, and when the dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert were fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground. On seeing it, the Israelites asked one another, "What is this?" for they did not know what it was. But Moses told them, "This is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat."
Comment
The First five Books of the Old Testament are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Together, they form a unit collectively known either as the Pentateuch, from the Greek word for five books or as the Torah, the Hebrew word for Law. The passage selected for our meditation is from the Book of Exodus, which proclaims the good news of God’s powerful interventions among his people, whom he has freed from slavery in Egypt and brought to Canaan, the Promised Land. Exodus in Greek means “departure” or “going out”, in this case, the providential escape of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt to freedom.
Before they reach the Promised Land, however, the Israelites spend forty years in the desert and during these forty years, they experience much hardship. In the passage of this day, we hear them complaining to Moses and Aaron about their condition. This complaining brings into focus the chosen people’s lack of faith and hope in God. Their behavior contrasts sharply with God’s faithfulness to his promise to them to rescue them from slavery and give them a land of their own.
In much the same way as Moses and Aaron listen patiently to their complaints, God is always ready to dialogue with the sinner. He listens patiently to his people’s complaints and takes steps to satisfy them. The manna and the quails not only alleviate their hunger; they are, above all, a sign that the Lord, who brought them out of Egypt, is not going to abandon them. He manifests his glory by dominating nature. He has not brought them out of Egypt to let them die in the desert, as the Israelites suspect, but rather to make sure that they survive despite difficulties. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that “manna in the desert prefigured the Eucharist, the true bread from heaven.” This true bread from heaven is Christ Jesus as we see in the Gospel of this day.
What do we learn from this passage? We learn the wonderful lesson that God never abandons us no matter how bad we believe our situation is. Like the people of Israel in the desert, all we need to do is turn to him and abandon our worries in his hands and he will pull us out of our difficulties. He puts these beautiful words in the mouth of his Apostle Matthew, “Come to me, you all you who are weary and weighed down by your burdens, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). Near restful waters, the Psalmist tells us, he will always lead us to revive our drooping spirits (Ps 23:2).
Let us pray: “You always watch over all your people, especially when they find themselves lost in the desert of their sins. You listen to them patiently and you stretch out a hand of forgiveness, welcoming them back to your fold. Do not only give us this day our daily bread but continue to teach us to forgive others their trespasses as you forgive us ours. God, our Father, continue to watch over us this day and always. We make this prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Second Reading: Ephesians 4: 17. 20-24.
Brothers and sisters: I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; that is not how you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard of him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus, that you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth.
Comment
In last Sunday’s reading, Saint Paul appealed to the Ephesians to maintain the unity of the Church in the face of factors making for division – internal discord, misuse of the different gifts and charisms with which Christ has endowed them, and the danger of being led astray by heretical ideas.
Today, he tells us that such unity is only possible if Christians imitate and put Christ in their daily lives. The Christian, who has been configured to Christ by Baptism, is called to holiness and therefore should not lead a dissolute life alienated from God, as the Gentiles do. The “futility of their minds” has led them away from God, the source of all truth (Rom 1: 18-32).
By urging the Ephesians not to live the way the Gentiles do, Saint Paul is telling them – and us -- to shed their old habits and put on new ones. Their old nature makes them slaves to their own passions and sin; whereas new habits bring them salvation through the Holy Spirit at Baptism. The change from the old to the new nature does not involve any external changes, as when someone changes his clothes, but rather an inner renewal, whereby the Christian, by becoming a new creature in Jesus Christ, is able to practice righteousness and holiness in a manner that exceeds his natural human capacity.
Saint Anastasius of Sinai summarises this best when he says in one of his sermons that “entering the Church and venerating sacred images and crosses is not sufficient for pleasing God, just as washing one’s hands does not make one clean all over. What truly pleases God is that a person flees from sin and gets rid of his stains by means of confession and penance. Let him break the chains of his faults by being humble of heart.”
Let us pray with Mgr. Michael Buckley for the strength to break from the old chains of sin and embrace the freshness of our baptismal promises: “By God’s gift, through water and the Holy Spirit, we are reborn to everlasting life. In his goodness, may he continue to pour out his blessings upon all his sons and daughters. May he make them always, wherever they may be, faithful members of his holy people and may he send his peace upon all, in Christ Jesus our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.”
Gospel acclamation: “Alleluia, alleluia. One does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Alleluia.”
Gospel: John 6: 24-35.
When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" Jesus answered them and said, "Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal." So they said to him, "What can we do to accomplish the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent." So they said to him, "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat." So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." So they said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."
Comment
Last Sunday, the evangelist John showed us Jesus multiplying bread to feed thousands of people. Today, he shows us Jesus teaching the meaning of his act in what has come to be known as the Discourse of the Bread of Life. It opens with the Jews searching for Jesus, not for his teaching on faith, but because they want him to give them more food to eat in much the same way as their ancestors were yearning for the ‘fleshpots’ of Egypt, as we saw in the first reading of this day. To ensure that they get what they want, whenever they want it, they try to make Jesus their king. In that way, he will continue to multiply bread for them at will. A dialogue ensues between Jesus and the Jews in which Jesus reveals himself as the Bread of Life, in the sense that faith in him is food for eternal life.
Bodily food helps keep us alive in this world; spiritual food sustains and develops supernatural life, which will last forever in heaven. This food, which only God can give us, consists mainly in the gift of faith and sanctifying grace. Through God’s infinite love we are given, in the Blessed Eucharist, the very author of these gifts, Jesus Christ, as nourishment of our souls.
One theologian has said that human beings need two basic kinds of food to attain perfect happiness and satisfaction: food for the body and food for the soul. Both are necessary. Which one of these comes first in the life and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ? It is spiritual food. That is why he says in Matthew 4:4 “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” And in John 4:34 he says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” When he multiplied bread to feed the hungry he did not mean to say that the solution to the deep hunger of the human heart is to give people more bread. No. He multiplied bread only as a sign, a sign pointing to the higher spiritual food that he was providing for the human soul.
But the crowd we see in today’s gospel mistakes the sign for the substance. They clamour for Jesus because they want more bread. They want to make him king, a king who fills the human stomach with bread. “Sir, give us this bread always,” they pray (John 6:34). But Jesus tells them to see beyond their stomachs: “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (John 6:26-27). It is because they cannot understand him that Jesus hides himself away from them. He does not want to be identified primarily with feeding stomachs. He wants to be seen primarily as one who has come to nourish the human spirit with the food that satisfies every hunger of the human heart, the food that does not perish but stays good and gives life eternally.
The big problem that Jesus has with the crowds looking for him is that while he speaks of spiritual reality they misunderstand him to be speaking of material things. Jesus has a similar problem when he meets the woman of Samaria at Jacob’s well. While he speaks to her about the spiritual water that he has come to give: “Everyone who drinks of this water [from the well] will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14), the woman understands it in terms of ordinary water and replies, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water” (verse 15). Materialistic minds cannot comprehend spiritual truths.
What lesson can we draw from this passage? We too are victims of materialism. We judge happiness based on how much material wealth we have. But the challenge for us today is to recognize that the false god of materialism, which promises satisfaction but leaves us ever more hungry, has seduced our society. We hear the spiritual truth of the word of God but we understand it in terms of satisfying our selfish desire for wealth and power. The cure is to follow the example of Jesus and flee the worldly allure and promises of materialism. Then can we pray with St Augustine: “O Lord, you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in You. Through Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen”.
Comments