A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 7, n. 36)
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – August 2, 2009
“The Bread of Spiritual Renewal”
BIBLE READINGS
Ex 16:2-4, 12-15 // Eph 4:17, 20-24 // Jn 6:24-35
(N.B. Series 7 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year B from the perspective of the Second Reading. For other reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year B, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 1 & 4.)
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
This Sunday’s liturgy of the Word continues to underline God’s unmitigated compassion and relentless care for his people. The recipients of God’s abounding love, however, are not always grateful, trustful and faithful. In the Old Testament reading (Ex 16:2-4, 12-15), the newly liberated Israelites – distressed by the desperate situations in the wilderness – forgot the wonderful works of God and his benevolence. They began to grumble against Moses and Aaron. Full of hunger and discontent, they languished and yearned for the old fleshpots of Egypt. Unable to trust in divine providence, they preferred the chains of bondage in exchange for daily bread. How fickle they were and slow to trust in their loving Redeemer!
In the Gospel reading (Jn 6:24-35), the multiplication of the loaves and fish was used by Jesus as a sign of a greater gift, but the crowd – eager to have a breadbasket king and a Messiah political liberator – refused to perceive its meaning. In the Bread of Life discourse, of which today’s Gospel text is a part, Jesus patiently and heroically catechizes the people concerning the Bread that endures forever.
The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 5, comment: “The discourse on the sign of the multiplied loaves is a patient effort on his part to make the people understand its meaning. He knows that humans must work to earn their bread. But earthly foods, necessary though they are, can sustain for only a lifetime, a life that eventually flows away and ends with death. (…) The manna God gave through the intermediary of Moses orients us toward another food that comes directly from God: his life-giving Word unto eternal life. Jesus, God’s Word made flesh, is the promised bread. The only indispensable condition to feed on it is to believe in him. The words and the signs that Jesus accomplished, particularly the multiplication of the barley loaves, are, as God’s miracles that accompanied the people in the Exodus and the march through the desert, appeals to the faith, to the free commitment to follow him.”
The Bread of life – Jesus Christ – is God the Father’s benevolent gift to satisfy our deepest hungers for things beyond food: for forgiveness and reconciliation, for kindness and healing, for justice and harmony, for joy in place of bitterness and cynicism, for peace and unity. The Eucharistic Lord is the Bread of spiritual renewal and the true nourishment for eternal life. In order to receive him as the true Bread of life, we need to be renewed in heart and mind. According to Saint Paul, we must get rid of the “old self” and must put on the “new self”, which is created in God’s likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy (cf. Second Reading, Eph 4:17, 20-24).
The pastoral worker Harold Buetow remarks: “Jesus, not the Torah, is the way of eternal life. Unless we fill ourselves with him, we are not just empty and hungry. We are spiritually dead. We are what we eat. If we pursue only junk food like fame, prestige, wealth, or power, we shall die of malnutrition. One consequence of accepting God, as he is, is a new satisfaction in our life. For our self, this means a new spirit – one that comes outside ourselves for a change … Our world needs this kind of new spirit. (…) The perception in the letter to the Ephesians that the world is so turned in upon itself as not to be able to see God is, sadly still true. As a matter of fact, many material problems are caused in part by spiritual ones. Hunger in today’s world, for example, is not caused by our planet lacking the physical resources to provide food; it is because we have not the spirit to distribute our material resources properly … Let us each of us do our part to change ourselves and to turn the world around … Our real hunger will not be satisfied by the dryness, emptiness, and alienation of our greedy and materialistic society, which T.S. Eliot called the Wasteland. In short, let us do what the letter to the Ephesians preached: put on the new self, created in God’s way (v. 24).”
The following article by John Feister, “The Eucharistic Faith of Actor Clarence Gilyard” illustrates the transformation of Clarence and how the Eucharist became a bread of spiritual renewal for him (cf. ST. ANTHONY MESSENGER, April 2009, p. 23-26).
Sometimes all that it takes for a person to find the Eucharist is the invitation of a friend – and the grace of God. That’s what happened to Hollywood celebrity Clarence Gilyard. Raised in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, he left religion behind during the years he became famous acting alongside Jim Carrey (The Duck Factory), Tom Cruise (Top Gun), Bruce Willis (Die Hard) and on TV, most famously co-starring with Andy Griffith (Matlock), then Chuck Norris (Walker, Texas Ranger). (…)
In spite of his success, or perhaps because of it, there were problems. Clarence’s behavior was not proper for a married man: “My wife left me because I started to have an affair”, he admits. She took the children and wanted a divorce. Clarence got a wake-up call. “I was speaking a different language than the language of truth and accountability”, he says. Now he was sleepless: “Sure, I was hot as far as television was concerned. But I didn’t have my two babies. I didn’t have my wife. I was in Dallas; they were in Marina del Rey, California. She was filing for divorce.”
It was as much as he could do to go to work each day, he recounts. He ended the extramarital affair and got into a therapy group. “The only thing that was comforting was being in the presence of somebody where I could talk about my pain, then being with a group of people who were talking of their pain”, he remembers. Someone in the group invited Clarence to go to Mass with him. “So I went to a 5:30 Mass at St. Rita’s in Dallas.” Sunday evening was a hard time for him to be at church, because he was so mindful of everything from the weekend and days, even years, preceding that. He had spent a lot of time on his knees, alone, in his anguish. Now he had to go to his knees in the presence of everyone. “I was in the assembly with everyone, acknowledging …” His voice trails off.
“I don’t know how many Catholics are aware of why we are on our knees in the presence of Jesus”, he continues. “That’s where I needed to be. Mother Church allows that and informs us that way”, he says. “It is one of the great gifts.” Being near the Eucharist made Clarence intensely aware of the presence of God, he explains. “It’s all about the presence of God in the consecrated host. Otherwise, it’s just a building. If Jesus is not present, it’s a sham”, he says. But Jesus is present, he knows: “I experienced it that day and to this day. To this day, it is what sustains me.”
He describes “needing” to go to daily Mass, and when he slips, he recommits himself to the practice. He had known God’s mercy, God’s grace. Back in the early 90’s, when his religious awakening had occurred, he soon got himself to a priest: “I dumped everything out” and after it was all over, he was “in a state of grace”, he says. The priest told him, “You’re in a great place, kid.” “I’ve never forgotten that.” That Jesuit counseled Clarence into an RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) program for joining the Catholic Church and gave him some booklets for daily prayer.
His friend from therapy, whose privacy Clarence protects, invited Clarence to come to be with his family on Sundays when Clarence wasn’t invited back to be with his own family in California. “I would spend Sunday afternoon, then we’d go to Mass. They taught me the Rosary.” Then he would drive back to work for the week.
Over the course of the RCIA, Clarence developed a hunger for the Eucharist. “I so much wanted the Body of Christ”, he recalls. Since he was traveling overseas that Easter, he delayed his reception into Church until the following Christmas, the day after his own birthday, eight years ago. (…)
Along his life’s journey, Clarence Gilyard, the dramatist, has discovered a role, he says, “attracting people to God’s presence in my life”. The Eucharist is his food along the way. With a grateful heart, he adds, along with so many Christians who found their way home before him, “We are the Body of Christ.”
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
Do we ever grumble and yearn for the “fleshpots of Egypt”, preferring another enslavement in exchange for “daily bread”? Do we doubt the divine providence and God’s unconditional love for us?
Do we believe in faith that Jesus is the bread of life and that whoever comes to him will never hunger and whoever believes in him will never thirst? Do we allow the Eucharist to be for us the bread for spiritual renewal?
Immersed into the “blood bath” of Christ and nourished by his Eucharistic “body and blood”, do we allow ourselves to be renewed in our minds and hearts? Do we endeavor to put on the new self that has been created in God’s way?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Loving Father,
at times we hunger for false bread that does not satisfy.
We thus feel weak and empty.
Help us to long for the true bread of heaven – Jesus Christ.
He is the bread of the Word
and the Eucharistic food and drink.
Your beloved Son is the bread of spiritual renewal.
We truly cherish this beautiful gift.
Nourished by this living Bread you sent from heaven,
may we be renewed in our minds and hearts
and grow into the new persons you want us to be.
We praise you and thank you, gracious Father,
for you have made us a part of the one loaf, one bread, one body,
in Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit,
now and forever.
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Put on the new self created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” (Eph 4:24)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
ACTION PLAN: Pray that our celebration, adoration and contemplation of the Eucharist, may commit us to be a more compassionate people, eager to break the bread of the Word with the poor and needy and share with them the Eucharistic body and blood of Christ. By your active service to the poor and vulnerable, endeavor to incarnate the Catholic commitment to solidarity.
ACTION PLAN: To help us contemplate the goodness and generous compassion of God who gives us Jesus Christ, the bread of spiritual renewal, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A Weekly Pastoral Tool (Year B, vol. 5, n. 36).
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US