NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (2024)
Readings:
1 Kings 19:4-8
Psalms 34:2-9
Ephesians 4:30-5:2
John 6:41-51
In the Sunday readings over the last several months we have encountered many prophets who exhibit “prophetic fatigue.” Because of resistance to God’s Word, which the prophets were invited to proclaim, they became unhappy with their work, confused as to why God was asking them (of all people) to perform this function, and discovering that danger to their person far outweighed any benefits they could envision. It was difficult work!
Today’s first reading, yet again, portrays a prophet, Elijah, who just wants to die, literally die! Elijah is fleeing an assassination plot, and these threats on his person are getting a little tiresome. So much so, that all he wants to do is take refuge under the shade of a tree and pray for death. But while Elijah has certainly given up on himself, God has not given up on him, and with the help of an angel who wakes Elijah up from his slumber, gives Elijah some food and water to drink. When Elijah had his full he lay back down for more sleep, but the angel, who we can assume knew what was ahead, woke Elijah up once more and encouraged him to eat more. Without the additional sustenance, God’s angel told him, “the journey will be too long for you.” And so it was that Elijah was enabled to walk “forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God in Horeb,” all because of the food God shared with him. With the food of angels one can accomplish things once thought impossible.
The thoughts expressed in John’s gospel, you will recall, are expressed in all the gospels. How can Jesus suggest that “He is the bread come down from heaven”? We know His rather ordinary parents! Let the Jews murmur. In the meantime, Jesus is going to do splendidly what He does so well in John’s gospel – He is going to lead His listeners deeper into the mystery of who He is. Believing is less about 613 precepts and rules about purification, and more about “listening” for the Father who beckons us to come to Him in order that we might believe in His Son Jesus, who the Father has sent into this world in order that we might have eternal life.
Jesus boldly states: “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I 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.” This sentiment will infuriate the Jews and even cause some of His disciples to drift away because of its difficulty.
For us it is at the very heart of what it means to be Christian. As previously stated, the Eucharist, even as it was primitively celebrated, looms large behind John’s Bread of Life discourse, and for us who have been ‘brought up Catholic’ we understand where Jesus is trying to go. The Eucharist is at the very heart of what it means to be Christian, and through our partaking of the bread and wine at Mass, we gain the promised entrance into the eternal kingdom of God. Like the Israelites in our first reading, our partaking of the bread of angels enables us to do things which once were thought impossible, the very highest of which is taking our place in the unmerited kingdom where God, our Father, reigns supreme.
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