Today's Reflections
The Bread of Life Discourse
Jn 6:44-51
[Jesus said to the crowd,] 44“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. 45It
is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone
who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. 46Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.
47Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; 50this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. 51I
am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread
will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the
life of the world.”
The bread that I will give… is my flesh. Jesus
hits an unacceptable note when he tells this straight to the crowd and
his disciples. He teaches them two things about “flesh.” First, flesh
here means weakness or vulnerability. Even Jesus accepts the human
condition, with its share of discouragement, pain, and despair. Second,
flesh is also what draws us together in our common dependence on or
submission to God. All of us are related to Jesus and with one another
because Jesus has shared in our humanity and has poured out his blood
for us all.
Painfully
aware of his limitations, a Dutch spiritual author of our times has
written: “I’m saying I am very weak, broken, sinful, fragile, and
short-living person—but I rejoice in it. I stand under the cross of my
own suffering, or of God’s suffering, but I can stand. I don’t have to
fall apart. I stand with my head erect.”
“The only remedy for (moral) frailty
is divine assistance.
Persons have need of a higher energy…
Jesus wished to communicate this energy to us
in a habitual manner through the Eucharist”
(Eucharist, Gift of Divine Life).
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