August 15^th 2015. TWENTIETH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

GOSPEL: John 6:51-58

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(Translation of a homily by Don Fabio  Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio)

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel.

GOSPEL                                    John 6:51-58

Jesus said to the crowd:

‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.
Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever;
and the bread that 1 shall give
is my flesh, for the life of the world.’

Then the Jews started arguing with one another: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ they said. Jesus replied:

‘I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood, you will not have life in you.
Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life,
and 1 shall raise him up on the last day.
For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me
and 1 live in him.
As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father,
so whoever eats me will draw life from me.
This is the bread come down from heaven; not like the bread our ancestors ate:
they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.’

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . This Sunday’s Gospel continues the dialogue between Jesus and the people after the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. The people are following Jesus because they want him to provide more food, but Jesus is now proposing a new kind of food altogether. This new food does not perish and brings eternal life. Jesus is proposing a food that requires a deep personal relationship with him. In this sense his body is real food and his blood is real drink. But the people are not interested in this new and challenging type of food; they want Jesus to satisfy their immediate desires; they are not looking for the adult food that brings true growth and authentic life. Do we feed our children only with that which they want? Or do we try to feed them with food that truly nourishes? Jesus wants to give us the bread of life, but we are not interested and expect him to provide us with a very earthly type of bread instead. Jesus offers himself to us in a radical way that is expressed by the gift of his body and blood. But we are scandalised! We don’t want to be loved, pardoned, and served totally! Such love does not fit in with our see-saw way of measuring things. We prefer to be given that which we deserve, and to give to others (including God) only that which they deserve, and no more. If God gives himself to me totally, then I risk losing my autonomy and the self-referential focus of my life. The sweet suffering of the saints is to be aware that God has given himself to them totally and they can do little in return.

Jesus is proposing an ultimate kind of nourishment, but we would prefer if he would give us the kind of nourishment that fits in with our interests and expectations

The first reading on Sunday from the Book of Proverbs makes a contrast between the food that comes from wisdom and the sort of food that results from foolishness. In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that he is the living bread come down from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever, the bread that Jesus gives is his flesh for the life of the world. The people begin to protest: how can he give them his flesh to eat? We all have our own fixed ideas regarding what we should eat, how we should dress, what we should expect in any given situation. The Gospel reading comes after the account of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes in chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. The people are following Jesus because they are hoping that he will continue to feed them in this earthly way. But Jesus proposes a very different type of food, something wonderful and unexpected: whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood will have eternal life. Bread and wine nourish us in a temporary way, but now the providence of God is proposing nourishment of an ultimate kind. Jesus is inviting the people to to a relationship with him on a deeper level, but they are only concerned with their own interests. “Don’t tell us about a different kind of bread to the one that we are interested in. Give us the bread that we want!” Jesus’ response is to implore the people to consider him as nourishment in a much deeper sense. “My flesh is real food, my blood is real drink”. Jesus implores to be understood but he has difficulty in overcoming the “customs house” of the expectations of people. “I expect this from you, Jesus. Don’t try giving me anything else!” Jesus desires to give us more that we want or expect from him. But we are in love with our own solutions and our own projects. Jesus is telling us, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you will not have life in you”. We search for this authentic and complete life in everything that we do, but we never find it fully. This eternal life not follow the logic of human affairs; it cannot be obtained by our own wily strategies. It derives from the strategies and nourishment associated with the diet that God prepares for us.

Real nourishment does not involving eating only that which we feel like eating: it requires eating that which we do not like. God prepares an adult and challenging nourishment for us that goes beyond our desires and expectations.

The question of the diet that leads to eternal life is present from the first pages of the Bible. In Genesis, Adam and Eve are warned not to eat a certain food or they will die; now we hear the admonition in reverse: “Eat this food and you will live forever!” But what is our response? “No, sorry, I don’t feel like eating that”. The fundamental issue is that we like to decide for ourselves what we need. God, instead, presents us with a food that is adult, substantial and challenging. The food that God gives us that brings authentic life often involves things that we do not want to have anything to do with. If we only gave our children that which they wanted to eat, then we would destroy their health. We should nourish a child with food that is good for them, not with things that they hanker after. In the same way the spiritual human being is nourished by that which the wisdom of God sends our way.

Jesus offers himself to us in a radical way that is expressed by the gift of his body and blood. But we are scandalised! We don’t want to be loved, pardoned, and served totally! Such love does not fit in with our see-saw way of measuring things. We prefer to be given that which we deserve, and to give to others (including God) only that which they deserve, and no more. If God gives himself to me totally, then I risk losing my autonomy and self-righteous pride!

The Jews refuse to believe in the words of Jesus because they cannot accept this God who gifts himself totally to them. We have difficulty believing in love, believing in the gift of God. What we are inclined to believe in are the things that are compatible with our way of measuring things, our inner weighing scales in which everything is accounted for in perfectly just terms. But God is not simply just, he is a father to us who gives us more than we deserve. This includes the gift of his own Son who sacrifices himself for us: “My flesh is real food, my blood is real drink”. This is what we celebrate in the central sacrament of our Christian lives: that God is for us; that he is our food and we are nourished by him, that he is our servant in an utterly total way. But we cannot accept this; we are scandalised by it. We find it difficult to allow ourselves to be served in a radical way by God. We feel that the acceptance of such a relationship will compromise our autonomy. We feel that we will lose ourselves if we allow ourselves to be loved in such a total way; if we allow ourselves to be pardoned and to be the recipient of such wonderful gifts. The sweet suffering of the saints is to accept this gift and to be aware that they can give nothing in return; to be aware that their love is little compared to the way in which they have been loved. This sweet suffering of the true disciple is something that is worth bearing.