The Pastor’s Reflections
We’ve been reflecting on the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel at the Sunday Liturgy for three weeks. It will conclude with next Sunday’s Gospel when we see Jesus abandoned by many of his followers because they didn’t understand his teaching. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”
His teaching was a challenge to his disciples then, and is still a challenge to us today. What do we really believe? When we gather for the celebration of the Eucharist what do we expect? Here’s what I believe.
On Sunday, we believers gather to renew our faith. We praise God, recall our individual and communal struggles, ask for the strength and courage, and then listen to the Word of God in the scripture. This is the appetizer segment of our Eucharistic meal. It’s our response to Jesus’ teaching, “No one lives on bread alone, but on every WORD that comes from the mouth of God.” We feed ourselves with this Word and receive instruction and moral guidance.
I try, in the homily, to focus a simple and useful lesson from the three readings. The early Christian community read the scripture, the Old Testament, with a discerning eye searching for images of Jesus in the prophecies and the law. This is how they began to form a theology of Jesus, what we call Christology. Our personal knowledge of Christ develops in the same way. We learn more and more about him not only from the Old Testa-
ment but through the insights of our New Testament as well.
After we’ve fed ourselves at the table of the Word, we approach the eucharistic table where we eat the bread of life and drink from the cup of the new covenant. This communion unites us with God and solidifies our communion with each other, binding us as a community of faith. As we eat the eucharistic bread we ‘re nourished with the living reality of the resurrected Christ. When we drink the cup of the new covenant we participate in the mystery of Christ’s redemption – Christ eternally giving himself for the life of the world. We speak his words at each Eucharist: “Do this in memory of me.” At each Eucharist he reminds us to do what he did, to pour out ourselves in loving service to one another – to wash one another’s feet.
Let’s end this reflection with a final word from Jesus himself. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me, and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
