Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 7:51-8:1a; John 6:30-35)

People crave bread.  For the hungry bread may be the simplest form of dense food.  Once made, it can be transported anywhere and eaten for instant nutrition.  For the better off, “bread” serves as a metaphor for money.  This kind of bread seemingly provides for every need.  In today’s gospel Jesus uses bread in another way.  It represents his spiritual legacy.

The Jews ask for a sign if they are to believe in Jesus.  They remember how their ancestors pleaded with Moses and received manna received in the desert.  Jesus reminds them, however, that it was God who provided the bread-like substance.  Now, he says, the same God, his “Father,” is giving richer nutrition.  God has sent Jesus as the “true bread from heaven.”  Jesus provides all that a people need to live for eternity. He instructs them in his way of truth and love.  Even more, he nourishes for the task with his own body and blood.

Jesus is always calling us to believe in him more genuinely.  He wants us to embrace him more fully – his teaching, his example, and the community he has left behind.  When we do, he promises that we will not be disappointed.  Quite the contrary, we will find ourselves enjoying the fullness of life.

Tuesday, April1 7, 2018

Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 7:51-8:1a; John 6:30-35)

According to one journalist a ferocious debate is taking place about food.  The topic is how to assure that everyone eats when the world’s population rises to ten billion.  The journalist calls the two sides of the debate “wizards” and “prophets.”  Wizards predict that technological manipulation of present crops will be able to feed such great numbers.  Prophets believe that people will have to change eating habits if everyone is to have enough to eat.  They call for eating less meat and more grains and vegetables.  Jesus may be seen as weighing in on the issue in today’s gospel.

The people want Jesus to perform a miracle.  Knowing that he has just fed over 5,000, they want him to give another such sign.  But they are missing the point of Jesus’ feeding.  More than bread, they need to trust in Jesus’ word if they are to grow in life.  By following his teachings, they will come to possess even eternal life.  Thus Jesus shows himself in a sense to be both a wizard and a prophet.  As a prophet, he teaches people to abandon old ways of jealousy and rivalry.  As a wizard, he tells them of a radical way to love one another.

Jesus’ word has been embodied in the Eucharist.  When we take his body and blood, we commit ourselves to his ways.  The food itself has enormous value.  It provides us the grace to let go of hard feelings so that we might take care of one another.  In this way we follow Jesus to eternal life.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 7:51-8:1a;   John 6:30-35)

People crave bread.  For the hungry bread is the simplest of dense food.  Once made, it can be transported anywhere and eaten for instant satisfaction.  For the better off, bread serves as a metaphor for money, that indispensable resource seemingly capable of providing every need.  In today’s gospel Jesus uses bread as an image of his own spiritual endowment.

The Jews ask for a sign like the one their ancestors received when the Israelites ate manna in the desert.  According to the Scriptures manna gave sustenance but was not very satisfying.  At least, the people tired of it and complained to Moses that they wanted something more substantial.  Now God the Father is supplying the people’s deeper needs with a much richer kind of food.  Jesus names himself as the bread that comes down from heaven giving life to the world.

Jesus is calling us to believe in him.  He wants us to accept him – his teaching, his example, the community he leaves behind – as our way of living.  He promises that we will not be disappointed.  Quite the contrary, we will find ourselves enjoying the fullness of life.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 7:51-8:1a; John 6:30-35)

Jesus is sometimes called “the new Moses.” In the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew’s gospel it is said that Jesus like Moses presents the new Law to the people of Israel. In today’s gospel passage from John the people demand that Jesus give a sign like Moses that he is worth believing in. But Jesus is much more than another Moses. Both Matthew and John see Jesus as God’s Son speaking with his own divine authority.

At the hub of today’s passage the Jews assert that Moses gave their forefathers manna in the desert as a sign of his legitimacy. Jesus corrects the notion. It was not Moses who gave them bread, he says, but the Father who continues to feed them now with Jesus himself, the bread of life. We might say that as bread Jesus is multi-grained. In one way he bestows God’s wisdom as food for thought. In another he presents his body and blood under the forms of bread and wine which nourish the human spirit.

Although most Catholics reverence the Eucharist adequately as Jesus’ body and blood, we often lack a proper appreciation of his teaching as spiritual food. We have to study it, contemplate it, and - most of all – live it.