YOU ARE OUR LIFE
We
come to the end of a very long discourse of Jesus on the Bread of Life.
The people cannot accept this ludicrous language and many begin to stop
following the Lord. The language He speaks is of spirit and life. Those
who are not of the Spirit cannot accept it. To the human mind, it is
intolerable. But with faith in the Son of God, trust in His wisdom, and
hope in His promises, it makes perfect sense. This is one of those
teachings of Jesus which we simply accept, acknowledging its mystery yet
believing in faith the word of the Lord.
Jesus
turns to His followers and gives them a choice: to accept the teaching
and follow Him, or to leave Him. Peter, the spokesman of the disciples,
proclaims Jesus as the Holy One of God. Through the discourse, Jesus has
been insistent that His body and blood is real food and real drink. In a
mystical way, Jesus changes bread and wine into His body, blood, soul
and divinity at the consecration. It is not that we are cannibals, which
is what the Jews were alluding to. When we eat the bread and wine of
the Eucharist, we are consuming all that is Jesus — His very self. He is
the Risen Christ whom we partake of. As St. Augustine said, we receive
the
Body of Christ to become the Body of Christ. As fire consumes the wood,
we are consumed into the person of Jesus. We can say with Paul, “It is
no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me.” This is the greatest
miracle of the Eucharist. We become altus Christus(other Christs), in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas.
The
words that Jesus speaks are words of spirit and life. How we need these
words! We are inundated with words that ruin us, hurt and offend. In
the Mass, we hear the words of life through the readings and prayers.
Sometimes we become distracted but we really need to recapture the
beauty of the mystery here before us — Christ Present. He comes to heal,
to speak, to forgive and to abide. Let us believe again in the power of
the Eucharist. Let us turn again to the Holy One of God, Jesus His Son.
Fr. Brian Steele, MGL
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Do
you accept the teachings of Jesus in your life? Or do you turn away
from Him and stop following Him because of teachings that you cannot
accept?
Lord, You have given me life and love to me through Your Word. Fill me and make me whole.
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