20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

[cappie]

Today's Readings    Proverbs 9:1-6    Ps 34:2-7    Ephesians5:15-20   John 6:51-58

We live in a society where nothing holds our attention for very long.
 
A news story breaks and suddenly it is being covered live by every  news station. But like fireworks that brighten the sky for a moment that story soon goes dark and something else seizes our interest.
 
A politician says something deemed "politically incorrect" and the social media explodes with comments and reaction. But in a few days what was the hot topic barely registers in the digital world.
 
Apple announces the introduction of its latest electronic device and eager customers vie to be the first to buy this newest, must-have item. But like all things, what is new today is old tomorrow, and then tomorrow's device commandeers our interest.
 
A new self-help book is published and the media hails its author as the guru with life's answers. But as the book fades from the best seller list, a new spiritual guide is anointed, proclaiming a superior way to success and happiness.
 
Nothing holds our attention for very long. We look for the new and the novel. Then when we find it, we quickly become bored and run after something or someone else. In fact, much of our economy is based on the fact we never seem to be satisfied or content with what we have.
 
That dissatisfaction and restlessness that keeps us running from one thing to another will remain until we appreciate a simple fact. We came from God and we were created to go back to God. As the great preacher Fr Trevor Huddleston said “In the beginning God and in the end God.” It is only in a relationship with God that we find true meaning, genuine fulfilment, and lasting peace - what John's Gospel describes as eternal life.
 
Jesus Christ is the surest path to such a relationship with God. In this Sunday's Gospel (John 6:51-58), Jesus makes that point by speaking of himself as the food and drink that we need if we are to have true life. As he says, "Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me."
It is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, a relationship that Jesus dramatically describes as our sharing his very flesh and blood that we come into a relationship with God. As Jesus puts it, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you."
 
Again today in the liturgy, we are called to renew our faith in the Eucharist, to forsake the foolishness of believing only what we can see with our eyes.

Our response to the One who gives his flesh and blood for our life and that of the world is not only intellectual assent. Jesus gives his "flesh and blood," an expression that connotes the whole person. So we entrust our whole selves to him, body, mind, and spirit, expressed in our physical partaking of the Eucharistic body and blood.  

This is our story, and it tells of a love so great, that we struggle to comprehend and accept it. We cry, "How can this be?" and then we argue among ourselves about the meaning of the miracle.  Yet, in spite of our weakness, we are invited again and again to the table, to journey with pilgrim feet toward the one who gives us what he is-- The living Bread of the living God. 

When it comes to who were are as the church, the old saying—however trite-- is true: We are what we eat. God can put up with our grumbling, our murmuring and our quarrelling. But God cannot give up on our refusal to recognize who we are: Sons and daughters of God. Members of the Body of Christ. A holy People living in communion with God and one other.

Sunday by Sunday we gather around the altar, not as one insignificant community in Sydney, but rather as part of an immense innumerable kingdom that has moved beyond basic human survival instincts. We affirm: And so with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we cry out and without end we acclaim…

[cappie]

Consuming Jesus should transform us into his likeness. If we truly believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus our Savior, then why would we leave Mass unchanged?