John 6:51-58
It’s an outrageous thought that we make the mistake of taking the words of scripture literally, that we class ourselves as cannibals.
Our gospel reading today helps us face the importance and subtlety of the way we receive and understand the Gospel in the spirit and intent in which it has been written. John’s gospel of course is our great invitation in understanding the greater depth of the divinity of Jesus and spiritual and theological teaching John employs to deepen our relationship with an incarnate God who gives us the perfect, human example of being in the world. Jesus invites us into a deeper relationship with him by inviting us to feed on him, his way, his truth, his life, even to the shedding of his blood, that we may die with him and rise to newness of life.
Bread…body feeds and sustains us, gives us energy, purpose and hope, so long as we adopt the example, the model of the person of Jesus who points us to the divine, through the way of being in the world we can begin and strive to follow in all its aspects.
We do not need to be confused about Jesus radical and extreme invitation, but that we understand something of the urgency and importance of the invitation in terms of the greater impact it will have on a world begging for the sort feeding that will transform the way we both view and act in the greater and deeper need of the world.
Our feeding on Jesus gives us hope and in the transformative moment of taking his body into us, in the Eucharistic meal, calls us beyond hope into action through love, to love one another, ‘as I have loved you’.
Jesus invites us to live the promises of the Kingdom in the here and now, as our preparation to eternal life and as an invitation to others of the continued invitation to follow Jesus. Jesus himself is the food, the invitation to eternal life with God. Abide in that love, as we receive him once again in that spiritual tangible food, blessed and set aside for our nourishment, his sacramental presence with us.
Bless you in this journey and his service.
Fr. Jeff
Recent Comments