BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (# 36)
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
BIBLE READINGS
Ex 16:2-4, 12-15 // Eph 4:17, 20-24 // Jn 6:24-35
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTONS
One of the great blessings that America has received is food in abundance. In my native country, the Philippines, the daily anxiety of millions of poor people is where to get food to assuage their hunger. Scavengers rummage through filthy garbage cans to look for something to eat. Hungry children would ply the streets begging for food. I was standing on a busy street corner in Manila waiting for a ride when two small boys approached me begging for alms. I asked them whether they would like something to eat. They nodded their heads vigorously. I retrieved from my bag two huge sandwiches, plump with chicken salad filling, that a friend gave me at a thesis defense that I had just attended. The kids ran away munching on the sandwiches. After three minutes they came back with their half-eaten sandwiches, radiant with smiles and exclaiming gratefully, “Salamat, Sister! Masarap!” (“Thank you, Sister! Delicious!”). Then off they went again. I felt good that my little beneficiaries came back to thank me for the gift of bread I shared with them.
In today’s Gospel reading (Jn 6:24-35), the evangelist John tells us that the crowd Jesus fed on the other side of the lake got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. The beneficiaries of the loaves of bread and the fish were searching for him. They came back to Jesus, not to thank him, but for a mere material motive: as the source of an unlimited supply of bread and material goods. After experiencing the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, they wanted to make him their breadbasket king (cf. Jn 6:15).
Jesus, however, saw through it all and admonished them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw the signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled” (Jn 6:26). Indeed, Jesus wanted to raise their minds from purely earthly concerns to that which leads to eternal life. That is why he exhorted his superficially intentioned beneficiaries: “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” (Jn 6:27). To work for “the food that endures for eternal life” is in accordance with the will of God; it is to accomplish the works of God. Jesus asserted: “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent” (Jn 6:29).
To the perplexed crowd asking for a “sign” that they might believe in him, Jesus responded by directing their attention to “the bread of heaven” that God sends for the life of the world, a gift that surpasses the manna that God rained down from heaven on the people of Israel, journeying through the wilderness in the time of Moses. And to the people’s inevitable plea to Jesus: “Sir, give us this bread always”, the climactic response was an astounding auto-revelation: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (Jn 6:24). According to the authors of Days of the Lord, vol. 5: “This solemn declaration constitutes a first summit in Jesus’ discourse, which through circuitous discussion, develops in a coherent and progressive manner. The manna God gave through the intermediary 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 this promised bread. The only indispensable condition to feed on it is to believe in him.”
Indeed, as the liturgical assembly listens anew to the dramatic assertion, “I am the bread of life”, they experience once more the vital presence of Jesus in the Eucharist as “the bread of life” and the actualization in the “here and now” of the saving paschal event: Christ offering his body on the cross in death, so that we might live.
This Sunday’s Gospel reading has a tremendous relevance for our world and society. According to statistics, half of the people of the world go to bed hungry every night and by the end of today, 60,000 more people will die of hunger. Harold Buetow comments: “Bad as things are, the unrecognized hunger for God is even worse …And we still hunger for things beyond food: for forgiveness, for reconciliation, for kindness, for restoration in relationships, for justice, for joy in place of bitterness and cynicism, for peace, for unity – in short, for taking away the emptiness of our lives … Jesus is the way to eternal life. Unless we fill ourselves with him, we’re not just empty and hungry: We’re spiritually dead.”
We need to go to Jesus. He will satisfy the pangs of our inmost spiritual hunger and yearning for meaning and eternal destiny. In offering himself to us as the bread of life, he is appealing to our faith, to our personal response and free commitment to follow him. At the Eucharistic banquet, Jesus invites us to the table of plenty in which he sets himself as the spiritual food: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (Jn 6:35).
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Lord Jesus, you have said: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” We come into your presence today with our deepest hungers for things beyond food: for forgiveness, for reconciliation, for kindness, for restoration in relationships, for justice and freedom, for joy in place of bitterness and cynicism, for peace and unity, for spiritual and physical healing. Take away, we beg you, the gnawing emptiness of our lives. We long for deep communion with you and wish to experience the fullness of life. Fill our empty hearts with meaning and help us to look forward to the joy of eternal feasting. As we thank you for nourishing us at the table of your living Word and the Eucharistic banquet, we humbly beg you to give us the grace to be personally involved in alleviating the hunger pangs of today’s poor. We trust in your goodness and divine providence for we believe that you are the Bread of life sent from heaven to strengthen us in our pilgrimage to eternal life. We yearn for the blessed day when we will be united with you and the Father, in the love of the Spirit, forever and ever.
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.
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” (Jn 6:35).
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
Prepared by: Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang, PDDM