Sunday 12 August
(B) Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time • John 6:41-51
It can be amusing to listen to people who do not believe in God but have a high regard for Jesus. They say things like, ‘He was such a great moral teacher’, or ‘He went around doing good, and the Beatitudes and Sermon on the Mount are so moving.’ The amusement comes when you point out that the same Jesus said some pretty amazing things about who he was. They often respond, ‘Really, like what?’ Well, Jesus said things like, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6), ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live’ (John 11:25), and today’s amazing statement, ‘I am the bread which came down from heaven’ (v. 41). It is not hard to understand or appreciate why the Jews who first heard these words struggled and ‘murmured at him’. Any mere man who says such things must, as C.S. Lewis observed, be ‘mad, bad or God’.
When we receive the host and drink from the chalice, we receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the greatest mystery of all, the very source and summit of our faith, the Eucharist. We must resist and fight against the receiving of the Eucharist becoming routine to us. In the Eucharist we are fed and nourished by food which is good for this life and for the life to come. We take part in it because we believe literally in the words of Jesus and that what he teaches is true. In the Eucharist we give thanks and praise to the Father, we participate in the sacrificial memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection, and we come into the presence of Christ by the power of his word and his Spirit.
We have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration and in contemplation, full of faith and open to making amends both for our own sin and the sin of the world. We pray for the grace to let our praise, worship and adoration never cease.
Godhead in here hiding, whom I do adore. Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more. See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart. Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art. (St Thomas Aquinas)
1 Kings 19:4-8 • Psalm 33(34):2-9
Ephesians 4:30-5:2 • John 6:41-51
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