19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

1 Kgs 19:4-8
Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Eph 4:30--5:2
Jn 6:41-51

Meals are more than a stop to refuel our bodies. They can be a real art, a time to deepen relationships. We prepare the food carefully, set the table, cultivate good manners and good conversation. Behind the simple act of eating is a way to renew the human relationships which bring us to the table in the first place.

Today we continue our five-week look at the sixth chapter of John, where Jesus is portrayed as the "Bread of Life." In that chapter, people ask him for a sign, like the manna in the desert of Moses' time. Jesus' reply? He himself is the "bread of life."

In today’s Gospel the people “murmur" and accuse Jesus of arrogance—or worse. Jesus replies that he has come to give them his "flesh for the life of the world." He offers them the very life of God, a life that will enable them to live forever.

Jesus' words shock his hearers. To us, the words are familiar. We believe that in the Eucharist we celebrate each Sunday is the crucified and risen Jesus Christ himself, drawing us to himself. And yet how easy it is to take all this for granted, to make Sunday Mass just something else we do. Let's allow this summer meditation on the Bread of Life to renew our faith and our enthusiastic response to Christ.

I’m Father Greg Friedman with the "Sunday Soundbite" for St. Anthony Messenger Press, on the Web at FranciscanRadio.org.

Scripture:

•He got up, ate and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb. (1 Kings 19:7,8)

•Taste and see how good the Lord is; blessed the man who takes refuge in him. (Psalm 34:9)

•And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. (Ephesians 4:32)

•“…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.” (John 6:51)

Reflection:

•Who gives Elijah strength for his spiritual journey? Is this an inner journey?

•Does the psalmist literally mean “taste and see” or is this metaphor for entering into the spiritual journey? How do you “take refuge” in God?

•Is becoming compassionate love a way to consume (enter) Christ?

•Is consuming Jesus, “the living bread,” the way to enter into the interior or spiritual life that is God?

Yes, love is God in me, and if I am in love I am in God, that is, in life, in grace, a sharer in God’s being.…If charity is God in me, why look for God any further than myself? And if God is in me as Love, why do I change or disfigure God’s face with acts or values that are not love? (Carlo Carretto)