Bulletin August 19, 2012 20^th Sun in Ordinary Time B
Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58
This is the third installment of the Bread of Life Discourse from St. John’s Gospel.
Msgr. Romano Guardini in his monumental work, ‘The Lord’ says, “Jesus has already proclaimed that He is the bread of life; that ‘eating’ of the bread was faith now He intensifies sharply the challenging literalness of the symbol. Instead of, ‘I am the living bread’ He says, ‘and the bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world.’” Now the Jewish people were use to sacrifices and sacrificial feasts. What Jesus is saying just doesn’t fit in with their culture. Jesus doesn’t back down; He doesn’t tell a story or parable to make it more palatable but He is even blunter and insistent, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”
And Jesus continues and intensifies this: “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me and I in Him.” Jesus is stating irrevocably that whoever accepts this teaching lives this teaching, participates in the Eucharist wins eternal life. But the ones who rejects this nourishment will have no life in them. The Eucharist is now the link between God and each person; between the ‘remoteness’ of God to the here and now of each person’s existence. God does care; God more than cares. God gives Himself to me and each person who comes forward in faith Himself. This is wonderful…this is so special…this is so amazing that God cares this much about me and each person. Do I hear what this is all about?
The people who listened to Jesus were horrified. I’m sure that the Pharisees had already left and now deepened their plans to have their hated enemy, Jesus, be put away. Now they had all they needed to have Him killed. I’m sure the people who had followed Jesus clung to His words but they never expected words like this: His flesh being real food and His blood being real drink.
So what is the bottom line question that I feel is a must for me and every person of faith to reflect on? What made Jesus decide to give His presence to human beings in a meal, a meal in which people would ‘eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood?” (Jn 6:53).

Now it’s good to look at our ancestors in faith to understand even more of the depth of the Eucharist. The Jewish people had traditions from centuries past about the meaning of a community meal. As Msgr. Eugene Lauer explains, “There was nothing more unifying to ancient Jews than sharing a meal with friends. To them it was the epitome of hospitality and good will. It was perhaps the most perfect sign of accepting others into one’s own household.

When families would eat together, they did much more than simply ingest food in one another’s presence. They shared family stories, moving experiences, their hopes and dreams. Children would learn the family tradition and their religious heritage from the dramatic conversations over a third and fourth cup of wine.”
We see this when Abraham invited the three strangers to eat and later realizes they are from God. The father of the prodigal son kills a fatted calf and prepares a banquet to celebrate the return of a wayward son. Jesus used often the metaphor of a wedding banquet to illustrate the unity will exist in the final reign of God and the great Passover meal.
And Jesus is telling us that He is the meal itself. He really wasn’t making it harder to those people who listened to Him or make it harder for me and everyone. He promised to give us His body and Blood at a banquet. What does this mean? God wants to enter into that kind of happy, serious, intimate sharing with myself and each person. He wants to show us Himself in an intimate way, the most intimate way. Do I want to say YES to this invitation and its promise of eternal life or do I want to say NO because Jesus didn’t know what He was saying or He really didn’t mean it or whatever. It comes down to me and each person to decide to be one with God or to go our own way and find God. It’s this serious and important. What am I going to decide? So I reflect on:

• Can I appreciate the shocking impact of Jesus’ words on those listening?
  
• Do these words have any impact on me or have they become too familiar to shock?
  
• We don’t live our lives in theology and theories. We live our lives in our families. This is where we find meaning; this is where our purpose becomes clear. Jesus is inviting me into His family of love now and forever. Can I do it on my own? Do I reject His nourishment which is Himself?
  

• As Pope Benedict writes, ‘We have to rediscover God, not just any God, but the God that has a human face, because when we see Jesus Christ, we see God.”