Jesus Christ, The Living Bread

 

We do not eat His body and drink His blood and reject His life.

Reflection on Today’s Readings, 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, August 11th, 2024
Texts: 1 Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34:2-9; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; John 6:41-51 

                              Jesus Christ, The Living Bread

Jesus Christ tells us today that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him. He also adds that no one has seen the Father. How then does the father draw us? He draws by the spirit. This makes us to appreciate the role of the Holy Spirit in drawing us to Jesus. The instruction of apostle Paul in today’s second becomes very important. He says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”  

When we grieve the Holy Spirit we cannot hear and learn from the Father. We may now ask, “how do I grieve the Holy Spirit?” We grieve the Holy Spirit by our bitterness, anger, envy, and the likes. Hence, Apostle Paul says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, with all malice”. 

St. Paul does not tell us what grieve the Holy Spirit alone, he also tells us what keeps the Holy  Spirit alive active. What keeps the Holy Spirit alive and active in us are good attitudes. Hence, he says, “and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Both the body and spirit are full of life when we are kind, tender hearted and forgiving.  

Jesus Christ, The Living Bread

What does this tell us about the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist cannot be effective in us when we are not of good attitude. Jesus Christ emphasises today that He is the Bread of life. We do not eat His body and drink His blood and reject His life. He who eat Christ’s body and drink His blood without His life received a lifeless body. Some people who eat the body of Christ and drink His blood receive lifeless body and blood. 

Lifeless body is of no use or value. Hence, Apostle Paul says, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Eating the body of Christ and drinking His blood demands that we imitate His virtues, walk in His ways of life. It is in this way we eat His living body and drink His living blood.

Jesus Christ warns us of eating lifeless body and blood when He says, “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.” This is clear in His words: “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). We are to live by His words as we eat His body and drink His blood.  

The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh

The body and blood of Christ gives life because they have life. He is the living Bread, that is, bread that has life in it.. In His words: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."  

The message, today, is that receiving the Holy Eucharist demands that we accept the life of Christ. This means walking in His ways, obedience to His words. When this happens the Holy Eucharist gives life to the body and soul. We receive a Holy Eucharist as a living bread if we accept the life of Christ.  

Say this to yourself: Every day I receive the Holy Eucharist, I commit to imitating the virtues of Christ; I must be kind, tender hearted, forgiving and walk in love, as Christ loved me and gave himself up for me. Amen. 

Prayer 

Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised. Amen 

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke