AUGUST 12, 2012 : NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 116

Reading 1 1 Kgs 19:4-8

Elijah went a day's journey into the desert,
until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.
He prayed for death saying:
"This is enough, O LORD!
Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers."
He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree,
but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat.
Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake
and a jug of water.
After he ate and drank, he lay down again,
but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,
touched him, and ordered,
"Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!"
He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

The angel touched Elijah

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

R. (9a) Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Glorify the LORD with me,
Let us together extol his name.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
And delivered me from all my fears.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Look to him that you may be radiant with joy.
And your faces may not blush with shame.
When the afflicted man called out, the LORD heard,
And from all his distress he saved him.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him and delivers them.
Taste and see how good the LORD is;
blessed the man who takes refuge in him.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Reading 2 Eph 4:30-5:2

Brothers and sisters:
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.
All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling
must be removed from you, along with all malice.
And be kind to one another, compassionate,
forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.

So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

Gospel Jn 6:41-51

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said,
"I am the bread that came down from heaven,"
and they said,
"Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?
Do we not know his father and mother?
Then how can he say,
'I have come down from heaven?'"
Jesus answered and said to them,
"Stop murmuring among yourselves.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,
and I will raise him on the last day.
It is written in the prophets:
They shall all be taught by God.
Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
Not that anyone has seen the Father
except the one who is from God;
he has seen the Father.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

www.usccb.org

Scripture Study

August 12, 2012 Nineteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time

This weekend we celebrate the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. For five Sundays (17th to 21st Sundays of Ordinary Time) in a row during the summer of year B, we read from Chapter 6 of John's Gospel including the "Bread of Life Discourse". This week we read the third installment and the Gospel requires me to ask myself, "Am I murmuring in my heart or do I fully accept the revelation of God that Jesus brings?" The first reading gives us an example of God's care for His servants in the form of food for the journey which an angel brings to a very discouraged Elijah. The angel provides food and water for Elijah's journey to Mt. Horeb. In the second reading, Paul reminds the Ephesians of the unity among Christians that should be seen in their lifestyle and their interactions with each other. I must ask myself how is the unity of the Body of Christ expressed in my life and in my attitudes towards others.

NOTES on First Reading:

* 4-8 Here Elijah is partly on a pilgrimage and partly in flight from Queen Jezebel and King Ahab who seek revenge against him for the deaths of the prophets of Baal. Elijah is on his way to Horeb (Sinai according to other threads of the Exodus tradition), the site of the theophanies which Moses experienced (Ex 3:1-4:31). He goes back to the place where God began the covenant relationship with the law giver in order to lay his complaint before God. In response God gives him a revelation and a commission. Elijah sees himself as continuing the work of Moses. Moses and Elijah share the experience of theophanies on Mt. Horeb (Sinai) and the theophany on Mt. Tabor at the transfiguration of Jesus (Matt. 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-10; Luke 9:28-36).

The angel here is a tangible expression of the care that God has for His servants as they carry on their task of bringing the message of God to all who will listen.

• 4:8 In the scriptures, the number forty appears often. Usually it occurs as a symbolic number which means as many as were needed or as long as was required. Seldom does it mean the actual number forty.

NOTES on Second Reading:

* 4:30 The community-centered nature of the exhortations suggests that any offense against a fellow member is an offense against the Holy Spirit, because all Christians together form a living temple in which the Spirit dwells. See Eph 2:21-22. The One Holy Spirit unites the One Body of Christ (4:4; 1 Co 12:13) and is grieved (Eph 4:30; Isa 63:10) by anything that harms the unity of that body. The sealing with the Holy Spirit makes salvation a present reality. See Eph 1:13.

* 4:31 Paul incorporated elements of a traditional list of vices in the parenesis. Such lists are common in Hellenistic moral tracts as well as elsewhere in the New Testament such as Rom 1:29-31, Gal 5:19-21.

The vices listed here are those that are disruptive of communal life and injure the unity of the body.

* 4:32 The thought expressed here is reminiscent of the petition in the Lord's Prayer that God forgives those who forgive others, but the imperative and the conditions are reversed.

• 5:1 See 1 Cor 11:1, 1 Thes 1:6 There is a manner of life that characterizes membership in God's household (Eph 2:19). One of the characteristics defining Christians as members of God's household is love of neighbor modeled on the love that the Son of God manifested in His sacrificial death (Eph 5:2).

NOTES on Gospel:

* 6:41 The crowd murmurs like the Israelites in the desert whose complaints provoked the Mosaic gift of water and manna (Exodus 15:24, Exodus 16:2,7,12). It was an example of unbelief just as in this case (Isa 10:12, Psalm 106:24-25).

* 6:42 The rejection of Jesus because His "origins" are "known" is a traditional episode in the Synoptic tradition ( Luke 4:22, Mark 6:3). John uses that objection as the basis for saying that because of it Jesus cannot be "from heaven". This is the same type of objection often lodged against the Johannine Christians as presented in John 7:27-28

* The traditions of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem are irrelevant here even if they were known by John since the point is that Jesus has come from Heaven.

* 43-47 Jesus command to stop murmuring is followed by a series of sayings which encapsulate the Johannine theology of belief.

* Verses 44-45 reiterate the statement that only those "drawn by God" believe in Jesus.

Verse 44c like v 40c contains an editorial expansion that makes Jesus the agent of "resurrection on the last day."

* 6:45 John may have conflated Isa 54:13, Jer 31:34 to demonstrate that God is responsible for the faith of those who believe in Jesus

* 6:46 There is no knowledge of God apart from Jesus (1:18, 3:33, 5:37). One cannot be taught by God apart from hearing and believing the word of Jesus.

* 6:47 The series ends with another affirmation that the believer has eternal life.

48-49 The reference to Israelites eating manna in the wilderness completes exposition of the Scripture citation in verse 31.

* 6:50 The life that comes through eating the bread of heaven is contrasted with the death of the wilderness generation. This sequence repeats the pattern of verses 32-33:

negative statement in reference to the Exodus tradition, "not Moses...", "your fathers died";

followed by a definition, "bread of God is...", "bread which comes from heaven is..."

* 6:51a This completes the passage by picking up the sequence in v 35:

I Am saying;

Condition: "anyone comes..."; "anyone eats...";

salvation: "not hunger...", "live forever".

Verse 51a makes it clear that what is implied by not hungering and not thirsting is eternal life.

* From v51b on the discourse takes on a more deliberately Eucharistic tone rather than referring simply to Jesus as the revealer of the Father as it does up to 51b.

* The suggestion (Bultmann) that verses 51b-59 were added during the final editing of the Gospel of John does not need to imply that they represent a "correction" to the Gospel to make it acceptable to the emerging sacramental theology of the developing orthodoxy. The language, "I will raise him up on the last day", which appears to reflect later editing appears again in v 54.

Verses 57b and 58b speak of having life in the future tense but 54a and 56b use the language of realized eschatology. Verse 56 uses the language of remaining that appears in the farewell discourses (15:4-5; 17:21,23)

It has been suggested that this material may have originated in a Johannine last supper tradition that was recast to fit into the preceding discourse.

www.st-raymond-dublin.org

Meditation: "If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever"

Do you receive the word of God with trust and submission? A number of Jesus' contemporaries, including most of the religious authorities, rejected his authority to speak in the name of God. They despised him because they thought they knew who he was – supposing him to be an uneducated laborer from an out-of-the-way town called Nazareth. They regarded Mary, his mother, and Joseph, his foster father, as ordinary people with no particular distinction to their name. How could such a common man claim to be God's spokesman? They were even more offended when Jesus claimed something which only God could claim. He claimed to be the very source of life which comes from God and which lasts forever (John 6:51). Don't we make the same mistake when we refuse to listen to others because we think they are inferior to us? We can miss what God may wish to speak to us through others, especially if we despise the instrument which God chooses to work through. John states that the Jews murmured at Jesus. They listened to him, but with a critcal heart rather than with an open ear and an earnest desire to learn what God wanted to speak to them through his Son Jesus. There are many different ways that people can choose to listen to others: with an atitude of superiority, with indifference, or with a teachable spirit that wishes to learn, grow, and be transformed. How do you listen to God's word?
God offers his people abundant life, but we can miss it. What is the bread of life which Jesus offers? It is first of all the life of God himself – life which sustains us not only now in this present age but also in the age to come. The Rabbis said that the generation in the wilderness have no part in the life to come. In the Book of Numbers it is recorded that the people who refused to brave the dangers of the promised land were condemned to wander in the wilderness until they died. The Rabbis believed that the father who missed the promised land also missed the life to come. When Jesus offers us real life he brings us into a new relationship with God, a relationship of trust, love, and obedience. And he offers us real, abundant, sustaining life which last forever  – a life of enduring love, fellowship, communion, and union with the One who made us in love to be united with him forever. To refuse Jesus is to refuse eternal life, unending life with the Heavenly Father. To accept Jesus as the bread of heaven is not only life and spiritual nourishment for this world but glory in the world to come. Do you accept the Lord Jesus as the bread of life?
"Lord Jesus, you are the living bread which sustains me in this life and for all eternity as well. May I always hunger for the true and sustaining bread which comes from heaven and find in it the nourishment and strength I need to love and serve you all the days of my life."

www.dailyscripture.net

The Bread of Eternal Life

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Listen to podcast version here. John 6:41-51 The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven," and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ´I have come down from heaven´?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." Introductory Prayer: Father, I believe in you with all my heart. I trust in your infinite goodness and mercy. Thank you for so patiently guiding me along the pathway to everlasting life. I love you and offer you all that I have and all that I do, for your glory and the salvation of souls. Petition: Lord, give me faith to believe that you are the Bread of Life. 1. Faith is Free for the Pure of Heart: Sometimes we think that had we only lived in Jesus’ day it would have be so much easier to believe. However, this passage makes it clear that not only is faith a gift, but that to believe we must have certain dispositions of the heart. Those who murmur against Jesus are closing themselves off to the gift of faith, since the Father does not force our freedom; those who listen to the prophets and to the Father with humility and an open hearts will be drawn to Jesus by the Father’s love. Today we need these same dispositions. Without them, what God reveals will seem too difficult to accept or to live out – even appearing absurd to our human way of reasoning. These dispositions of the heart are so essential. We need to be less sure of ourselves and more dependent on listening to what God is saying to us in order to receive the gift of faith. 2. Bread That Was Less Filling: The manna which sustained the Israelites in the desert was a foreshadowing of the Eucharist. God fed his people with manna throughout their long journey to the Promised Land. Yet that bread did not give eternal life; indeed, the Israelites rebelled and complained and fell into sin again and again. They were looking more for material comfort and satisfaction in this world than for the hope and joy that comes from being led by God to a new life. In the Eucharist, God feeds us with the Bread of Eternal Life and leads us on the journey of this life to an entirely new life in him, which gives all our sufferings and difficulties meaning and hope. Let’s renew our faith in the True Bread that gives us life. 3. I’m Gonna Live Forever: Eternal life begins now for those who believe that Jesus is the Bread of Life. Through faith in the Eucharist, we enter into this new life that is qualitatively different from a life that is bound up in the world and seeks only pleasure and comfort within the material confines of our limited existence. Ultimately, human life – even the richest, the most successful, and most powerful – becomes a gray monotony unless there is hope in something new and greater than this existence down below. To live forever is not simply to go on endlessly in time, it is to enter a new dimension: into a life in God, who is our true fulfillment and peace. Conversation with Christ: Lord, give me always this Bread of Life. Open my heart and my soul to long for this new life that only you can bring me through the Eucharist. Give me the humility and simplicity to listen to you and to believe that you have the words of eternal life. Resolution: I will spend time before the Blessed Sacrament and read all of Chapter Six of St. John’s Gospel, in which Jesus gives his discourse on the Bread of Life. I will ask the Holy Spirit to deepen my faith that the Eucharist is the center of my life, and I will embrace the teaching that nothing else has as much importance as true devotion to the Eucharist.

www.regnumchristi.com

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord

‘Everyone who believes has eternal life.’

In 1980, I was sent to study in Chicago. It was a life-changing experience on every level, but particularly that of faith. Looking back, I can see it was so powerful and life-giving because, though unknown, I was seen and accepted as the person I was. No one had preconceptions or dismissed me because they knew what I was like, or what I could or could not do.

As my spiritual director said, it was as if I had been set free in a laboratory and could try new things. By believing in me and challenging me to be open to the love and gifts of God, he galvanised me to a life of deep faith and prayer. His wisdom and guidance has sustained me ever since. Jesus, I can limit people. Help me to believe in and encourage them.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

WINTER

Love winter when the plant says nothing.

-         Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton, "Emblems of a Season of Fury," The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton [New York: 1977]

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MINUTE MEDITATIONS 

Don’t Be a Hypocrite
Do not have Jesus Christ on your lips, and the world in your heart. —St. Ignatius of Antioch
— from Firmly On the Rock

August 12

St. Jane Frances de Chantal
(1562-1641)

Jane Frances was wife, mother, nun and founder of a religious community. Her mother died when Jane was 18 months old, and her father, head of parliament at Dijon, France, became the main influence on her education. She developed into a woman of beauty and refinement, lively and cheerful in temperament. At 21 she married Baron de Chantal, by whom she had six children, three of whom died in infancy. At her castle she restored the custom of daily Mass, and was seriously engaged in various charitable works.
Jane's husband was killed after seven years of marriage, and she sank into deep dejection for four months at her family home. Her father-in-law threatened to disinherit her children if she did not return to his home. He was then 75, vain, fierce and extravagant. Jane Frances managed to remain cheerful in spite of him and his insolent housekeeper.
When she was 32, she met St. Francis de Sales (October 24), who became her spiritual director, softening some of the severities imposed by her former director. She wanted to become a nun but he persuaded her to defer this decision. She took a vow to remain unmarried and to obey her director.
After three years Francis told her of his plan to found an institute of women which would be a haven for those whose health, age or other considerations barred them from entering the already established communities. There would be no cloister, and they would be free to undertake spiritual and corporal works of mercy. They were primarily intended to exemplify the virtues of Mary at the Visitation (hence their name, the Visitation nuns): humility and meekness.
The usual opposition to women in active ministry arose and Francis de Sales was obliged to make it a cloistered community following the Rule of St. Augustine. Francis wrote his famous Treatise on the Love of God for them. The congregation (three women) began when Jane Frances was 45. She underwent great sufferings: Francis de Sales died; her son was killed; a plague ravaged France; her daughter-in-law and son-in-law died. She encouraged the local authorities to make great efforts for the victims of the plague and she put all her convent’s resources at the disposal of the sick.
During a part of her religious life, she had to undergo great trials of the spirit—interior anguish, darkness and spiritual dryness. She died while on a visitation of convents of the community.

Comment:

It may strike some as unusual that a saint should be subject to spiritual dryness, darkness, interior anguish. We tend to think that such things are the usual condition of “ordinary” sinful people. Some of our lack of spiritual liveliness may indeed be our fault. But the life of faith is still one that is lived in trust, and sometimes the darkness is so great that trust is pressed to its limit.

Quote:

St. Vincent de Paul (September 27) said of Jane Frances: “She was full of faith, yet all her life had been tormented by thoughts against it. While apparently enjoying the peace and easiness of mind of souls who have reached a high state of virtue, she suffered such interior trials that she often told me her mind was so filled with all sorts of temptations and abominations that she had to strive not to look within herself...But for all that suffering her face never lost its serenity, nor did she once relax in the fidelity God asked of her. And so I regard her as one of the holiest souls I have ever met on this earth” (Butler’s Lives of the Saints).

www.americancatholic.org

BLESSED POPE INNOCENT XI

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12, 2012

Benedetto Odescalchi was born at Como on May 16, 1611, and died in Rome, August 11, 1689.

He was educated by the Jesuits at Como, and studied jurisprudence at Rome and Naples. Urban VIII appointed him successively prothonotary, president of the Apostolic Camera, commissary at Ancona, administrator of Macerata, and Governor of Picena. Innocent X then made him Cardinal-Deacon of Santi Cosma e Damiano on March 6, 1645, and, somewhat later, Cardinal-Priest of Sant' Onofrio.

As cardinal he was beloved by all on account of his deep piety, charity, and unselfish devotion to his duties. When he was sent as legate to Ferrara in order to assist the people stricken with a severe famine, the pope introduced him to the people of Ferrara as the "father of the poor", "Mittimus patrem pauperum". In 1650 he became Bishop of Novara, a capacity in which he spent all the revenues of his see in order to relieve the poor and sick of his diocese. With the permission of the pope, he resigned as Bishop of Novara in favour of his brother, Giulio, in 1656 and went to Rome, where he took a prominent part in the consultations of the various congregations in which he was a member.

Odescalchi was unanimously elected pope on September 21, 1676, and he took the name of Innocent XI. Immediately upon his accession he turned all his efforts towards reducing the expenses of the Curia. He passed strict ordinances against nepotism among the cardinals, and he himself lived very parsimoniously and exhorted the cardinals to do the same.

His pontificate was marked by the prolonged struggle with Louis XIV of France on the subject of the so-called "Gallican Liberties", and also about certain immunities claimed by ambassadors to the papal court. He died after a long period of feeble health on August 12, 1689.

The cause for his canonization was first introduced in 1714, but the influence of France forced it to be suspended in 1744. In the 20th century it was reintroduced, and Pius XII announced his beatification on October 7, 1956.

www.catholicnewsagency.com

BL. ISIDORE BAKANJA, MARTYR (M)

Liturgy: 

 Sunday, August 12, 2012

Bl. Isidore Bakanja, a member of the Boangi tribe, was born in Bokendela (Congo) between 1880 and 1890. In order to survive, even as a boy, he had to work as bricklayer or in farms. He was converted to Christianity in 1906. He was working in a plantation run by a colonialist in Ikili and was forbidden by the owner to spread Christianity among his fellow-workers. On 22 April 1909, the superintendent of the business tore off the Carmelite Scapular, which Isidore was wearing as an expression of his Christian faith, and had him severely beaten even to drawing blood. He died on 15 August of the same year as a result of the wounds inflicted in "punishment" for his faith and which he bore patiently while forgiving his aggressor. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 24 April 1994.

Blessed Isidore Bakanja

1887-1909

Isiidore Bakanja worked as an assistant mason for white colonists in what was then the Belgian Congo and later known as Zaire. Convert, baptized 6 May 1906 at age 18 after receiving instruction from Trappists missionaries. Rosary in hand, he used any chance to share his faith; though untrained, many thought of him as a catechist. He left his native village because there were no fellow Christians.

He further worked as a domestic on a Belgian rubber plantation. Many of the Belgian agents were atheists who hated missionaries due to their fight for native rights and justice; the agents used the term "mon pere" for anyone associated with religion. Isidore encountered their hatred when he asked leave to go home. The agents refused, and he was ordered to stop teaching fellow workers how to pray: "You'll have the whole village praying and no one will work!" He was told to discard his Carmelite scapular, and when he didn't, he was flogged twice. The second time the agent tore the scapular from Isidore's neck, had him pinned to the ground, and then beaten with over 100 blows with a whip of elephant hide with nails on the end. He was then chained to a single spot 24 hours a day.

When an inspector came to the plantation, Isidore was sent to another village. He managed to hide in the forest, then dragged himself to the inspector. "I saw a man," wrote the horrified inspector, "come from the forest with his back torn apart by deep, festering, malodorous wounds, covered with filth, assaulted by flies. He leaned on two sticks in order to get near me - he wasn't walking; he was dragging himself". The agent tried to kill "that animal of mon pere", but the inspector prevented him. He took Isidore home to heal, but Isidore knew better. "If you see my mother, or if you go to the judge, or if you meet a priest, tell them that I am dying because I am a Christian."

Two missionaries who spent several days with him reported that he devoutly received the last sacraments. The missionaries urged Isidore to forgive the agent; he assured them that he already had. "I shall pray for him. When I am in heaven, I shall pray for him very much." After six months of prayer and suffering, he died, rosary in hand and scapular around his neck.

www.ocarm.org

LECTIO: 19TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (B)

Lectio: 

 Sunday, August 12, 2012

The bread of life 
John 6: 41-51

Opening prayer

Shaddai, God of the mountain,
You who make of our fragile life
the rock of your dwelling place, 
lead our mind 
to strike the rock of the desert, 
so that water may gush to quench our thirst. 
May the poverty of our feelings
cover us as with a mantle in the darkness of the night 
and may it open our heart to hear the echo of silence 
until the dawn, 
wrapping us with the light of the new morning, 
may bring us, 
with the spent embers of the fire of the shepherds of the Absolute
who have kept vigil for us close to the divine Master,
the flavour of the holy memory.

1. Lectio

a) The text:

41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." 42 They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" 43 Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."

b) A key to the reading:

The sixth chapter of John's Gospel presents a entire picture that develops around the Paschal theme and, analogously with what precedes it, unfolds through the telling of a miracle (5:1-9a 6:1-15) followed by a discourse (5:16-47; 6:22-59). The chapter relates that part of Jesus' activity in Galilee, precisely at its most sublime moment, when Jesus reveals himself as bread of life to be believed in and eaten in order to be saved. In vv. 1-15 we find the great sign of the multiplication of the loaves whose significance is revealed in the discourse of the following day in vv. 26-59: the gift of bread to satisfy the hunger of the people prepares the way for the words concerning the bread of eternal life. Inserted, vv. 16-21, we find the story of Jesus walking on the water. In vv. 60-71 Jesus, knowing their lack of faith (vv. 60-66) and trying to encourage their faith (vv. 66-71), invites the twelve disciples to make up their minds. The whole discourse on the bread of life (6: 25-71) presents parallels with some Hebrew texts, especially with Philon.

c) A moment of silence:

Let the sound of the Word echo in us.

2. Meditatio

a) A few questions:

- They murmured at him: how many are the voices that murmur against God? 
- I am the bread which has come down from heaven: where do we acquire the bread that we eat every day? 
- No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him: does the Father draw us or do we drag our feet behind him criticising that which he says to us in our daily life? 
- If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever: we nourish ourselves with the Word of God and the broken Bread once a week or even every day… why is it that eternal life is not evident in our words and our human experience? 

b) A key to the reading:

To murmur. What better way is there for us not to live in depth that which the Lord asks of us? There are thousands of plausible reasons… thousands of valid justifications… thousands of licit motives… for us not to swallow a Word that defies every reason, every justification, every motivation to allow new echoes to resonate from a not so distant heaven that dwells in our hearts

v. 41. The Jews murmured at him because he had said: "I am the bread which came down from heaven". Jesus had just said: I am the bread of life (v. 35) and I have come down from heaven (v. 38) and this provokes dissent among the crowd. The term Jews is a theological one in John and may be thought of as synonymous with unbelievers. In truth these were Galileans who were called Jews because they murmured at Christ whose words disturbed their usual categories. The Jews were familiar with the term bread come down from heaven. The children of Israel knew the bread of God, the manna, which had satisfied their hunger in the desert and had given security to a precarious journey whose horizons were uncertain. Christ, manna for humankind who in the desert of an unsatisfied hunger invokes heaven to sustain it on its journey. This is the only bread that satisfies hunger. The words of the Jews are an objection to the person of Jesus and also an occasion to introduce the theme of unbelief. In other passages the people "whisper" about Jesus (7:12, 32), but in this chapter they "murmur" about what he says, about his words. This murmuring puts an emphasis on their unbelief and incomprehension.

v. 42. "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How does he now say: I have come down from heaven?". This is subtle irony. The unbelievers know the earthly origins of the Christ, they know for certain the son of Joseph, but not the son of God. Only those who believe know his transcendental origin by the direct intervention of God in the Virgin. The passage goes from material language, bread made from water and flour, to a spiritual language, bread for the human soul. As once the people in the desert did, the Jews murmur: they do not understand the origin of Jesus' gift: and as once their forbears refused the manna because it was too light, so now the descendants refuse the Word made flesh, bread come down from heaven, because of its earthly origin. The Jews, from all that Jesus said, only take note that he had said: I have come down from heaven (v. 38). Yet this is that which gives substance to all that was said before about being the bread of life (v. 35). The question: Is not this… is asked in a context of surprise in the Synoptic Gospels. In Matthew and Luke, through the story of Jesus' childhood, the reader has already been told of the virginal conception of Jesus. In John, the Galileans are confronted with someone who claims to have come down from heaven without any previous discussion as to his human condition. Son of Josephmeans that Jesus is a man like all other men (cfr. 1,45).

v. 43-44. Jesus answered them: "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day". Jesus does not seem to dwell on his divine origin but stresses that only those drawn by the Father can come to him. Faith then is a gift of God and depends on a person's openness and ability to listen… but what does it mean to say the Father draws? Is not a person free on this journey? The attraction is simply the desire written in the tablets of flesh borne in the heart of every person. Thus complete freedom exists in a spontaneous clinging to the source of one's being. Life can only attract life, only death cannot attract.

v. 45. It is written in the prophets: "And they shall all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to me". The rest of the narrative follows a very precise order. These words are not an invitation, but a command. The creative Word of God, who called into existence from nothing light and all other creatures, now calls his own likeness to participate in the new creation. The consequence does not flow from an autonomous and personal decision, but from meeting with the person of Jesus and his call. It is a grace event, not a human choice. Jesus does not wait for a free decision, but calls with divine authority as God called the prophets in the Old Testament. It is not the disciples who choose the Master as was the case with rabbis at the time, but the Master who chooses the disciples as beneficiaries of God's inheritance, which is much greater than any doctrine or teaching. The call implies the giving up of family, profession, a complete change of one's way of life in order to cling to a way of life that leaves no space for self-centredness. The disciples are people of the kingdom. The call to become disciples of Jesus is an "eschatological call". The words of the Babylonian prophet of the exile says: "and all her children (Jerusalem's) shall be" - referring to the Jews. The use of: "all shall be" is an expression of the universality of salvation whose fulfilment is Jesus.

v. 46. Not that any one has seen the Father, except him who comes from God, he has seen the Father. Only Jesus, who is from God, has seen the Father and can reveal him definitively. People are called to come from God. Knowledge of the Father is not a conquest, it is an origin. The movement is not external. If I look for an external origin I can say that I have a father and mother, a creature of the created world. If I look for a deeper origin of my essential being I can say that I come from the Father, Creator of all life.

v. 47. Truly, truly, I say to you: He who believes has eternal life. To believe in the words of Jesus, in his revelation, is a condition for obtaining eternal life and to be able to be "taught by the Father". I believe, I lean on a rock. The strength is not within my creature limitations, nor in the realisation of my creature efforts to attain perfection. All is firm in Him who has no temporal attachments. How can a creature lean on itself when it is not master of one single instant of its life?

v. 48. I am the bread of life. Again the theme of the bread of life is presented together with that of faith and of eternal life. Jesus is the true bread of life. This verse is connected with verse 51 "I am the living bread". Only he who eats this bread, he who assimilates Jesus' revelation as vital bread, will be able to live.

vv. 49-50. Your Fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died: this is the bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat of it and not die. The bread come down from heaven is contrasted with the manna that fed their fathers but not preserved them from death. This bread that gives life without end and comes from on high is the incarnate Word of God. The Eucharistic theme, already implied in some expressions, now becomes central. Earthly death does not contradict this experience of life if one walks along transcendental ways. The limitation is no limitation for those who eat of Him.

vv. 51. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.". The "flesh" of Jesus is the vital food for the believer. The word flesh (sàrx), which in the Bible indicates the fragile reality of the human person before the mystery of God, now refers to the body of Christ immolated on the cross and to the human reality of the Word of God. It is no longer a metaphorical bread of life, it is the revelation of Jesus because the bread is the very flesh of the Son. For the life of the world means in favour of and emphasises the sacrificial dimension of Christ because for the world expresses the salvation which flows from that dimension.

c) Reflection:

Murmur. If our murmuring were like a soft breeze, it would act as a harmonious basis for the eternal words that become our flesh: I am the living Bread that has come down from heaven. What a surprise that would be, knowing that this eternal Bread is not a stranger, but Jesus, the son of Joseph, a man whose father and mother we know. We eat and we are assumed, because those who eat of this bread will live for ever. This is a bread that is born of the love of the Father. We are invited to listen and learn from Him on the trajectory of attraction, on that peak of faith that allows us to see. Bread with bread, Flesh with flesh. Only He who comes from God has seen the Father. And when we have made of our flesh the table of the living Bread, then we shall have seen the Father. Desert and death, heaven and life. A sweet marriage fulfilled in every Eucharist… on every altar, on the altar of the heart where the life of the divine Breath consumes the disfigured lineaments of a lost person.

3. Oratio

Psalm 33 (32)

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, 
and all their host by the breath of his mouth. 
He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle; 
he put the deeps in storehouses.

The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nought; 
he frustrates the plans of the peoples. 
The counsel of the Lord stands for ever, 
the thoughts of his heart to all generations.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, 
on those who hope in his steadfast love, 
that he may deliver their soul from death, 
and keep them alive in famine.

4. Contemplatio

The experience of the food that satisfies the hunger of the heart reminds me, Lord, that I can pass from imperfection to the fulfilment of being a reflection of yourself, not by doing away with the hunger, but by finding in it no longer a homo dormiens, someone who does not ask questions of himself, who lives without any interest, who does not wish to see or feel, who will not allow himself to be touched, who lives in fear, superficially rather than in depth, and who keeps a horizontal position when confronted by events, sleeping or ignoring whatever he meets… but rather a homo vigilans, he who is always present to himself and others, capable of satisfying himself by his work and service, who responsibly does not stop at that which is immediate, but who knows how to pace himself for the long and patient waiting, who expresses the all that dwells in each fragment of his life, who no longer fears feeling vulnerable, because he knows that the wounds of his humanity can be transformed into scars through which Life joins in the passing of time, a Life that is finally able to realise his End and that sings to Love with his "scarred heart" wrapped in a "flame that consumes but does not hurt" and in order to meet him definitively is prepared to "tear the veil". Hunger is no longer hunger, because it now becomes the sweet burden of limitation, protected by "the delicious wound" and always open to the "sweet encounter" that will satisfy every desire: "The Beloved is the mountain, the solitary valleys full of shade…He is like the calm night, very close to dawn, a silent music, a resounding silence… Who will heal this my scarred heart?… He is the consuming flame that does not hurt! O my Beloved, tear the veil at the moment of our sweet encounter."

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