EUCHARIST: THE FOUNTAIN OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
The Eucharist is the fountain of Christian Life. That is, it is the source and summit of the Christian life and Church. This is the affirmation of the Vatican II document. The Christian life is a journey of perfection towards a spirituality oriented towards Heaven and God. It is a weary journey that needs food to strengthen us on the way.
The Eucharistic meal is the heavenly food that we are invited to partake of in other to fight or struggle on. It is the meal that is the fountain of the Christian life. Hence, it is centred on the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church and the Christian life.
It is an indispensable meal of Christian growth and development centred on Christ Jesus. Christ is centred on the Eucharistic life of the Church and all Christian. We depend on the Eucharistic Christ not only for our sustenance, nourishment or strength. It is also making Christ central in our lives: our spiritual and Christian life. By our participating in the Eucharistic meal, we must or should become what we eat: Christ to others. This is the fundamental implication of our participation in the Eucharistic meal, which is the fountain of the Christian.
OUR THEME
There is an insatiable hunger or thirst in all of us. This hunger cannot be satisfied by physical food since it is a spiritual hunger welling up in us. Christ is that living bread from heaven who could fill or satisfy that hunger in us.
Hence, the readings present us with bread that strengths us for the weary journey of life. As well as the bread to satisfies to eternal life. The bread of life is Jesus Christ: the Living Word of God, who became man and dwelt among us.
Therefore, the bread of life, which is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is both the Eucharistic meal and the Word of God. This Eucharistic is the fountain of the Christian life. That means it enriches us with divine life on our earthly pilgrimage, as well as assures us of eternal life.
FIRST READING: 1 KINGS 19:4-8
After the contest and the killing of the false prophets of Baal, Elijah escaped Queen Jezebel, the angry wife of King Ahaz, who wanted to kill him. Hence, on his journey to the mountain of the Lord, he was physical, emotional and spiritual worn out. It was a deep crisis moment to give up on life, faith, and the Lord who save and defend him.
The experience of Elijah makes us understand that life is a journey in the wilderness of struggle, and we need rest and nourishment to remain on this journey.
- Elijah’s state: utterly exhausted from the work of the Lord.
- He was in danger for speaking out the truth to the powerful.
- He was deeply frustrated for his un-yielding effort against the evil that seems to have the upper hand in the scheme of things.
- He was also afraid, overwhelmed, burned out on a journey to meet God, in the wilderness or on the mountain.
- He was alone, depleted of energies and engulfed with despair wish and ask for death.
- Elijah laid down and fell asleep. In that sleep, a sort of mini-death, he let go of his bitterness, frustrations, and worries of the burdens of holy work to allow deep rest in body, mind and spirit.
- Amid the rest, he was encouraged to eat something by the angel of the Lord. He did and went back to sleep to sustain and restore his strength fully.
- God sends a messenger (angel) who says, “Get up and eat”. God does this twice, just as Elijah sleeps twice.
- Elijah recognized his creatureliness and need for food to fuel his body and provide strength for the road ahead. It was declared at the end of the reading: “then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God”.
However, the caring God sent his angel to comfort and encourage Elijah. He also provided for him miraculous food and water to revive his weary strength and spirit. One thing is sure from this passage, God never leaves us alone in our life journey, weariness, and struggle. His consoling presence always abides by us.
Prophet Elijah act of rest could is an act of faith. A way of de-centralizing our sense of self-in-control of the events of life to absolute trust in God. This passage invites us to embrace our creatureliness, our need for rest and nourishment, not as signs of moral failure but as our connection to the One-Who-Provides.
PSALM 34
By his poetic expression in Psalm (34), the psalmist invites us to acclaim firmly: “taste and see the goodness of the Lord”. That is, he invokes our human senses of taste, hearing, sight, and touch to praise and acknowledge the Lord for his provision and goodness.
SECOND READING: EPHESIANS 4:30–5:2
Interestingly, the Eucharistic meal is not a moral feast but thoughtful, forgiveness and reconciliation. Hence, St Paul encourages the Ephesian Christians to be kind and forgiving towards one another as God was towards them in Christ Jesus.
Indeed, this is central to the Eucharistic celebration, Christ our bread and living meal unites us all in God. For Paul, Christ love for us through a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God was for us to live a joyful life in the Holy Spirit who has marked us for the Christian life.
As such, our lives in Christ Jesus should be a life of love, kindness, tenderness, forgiveness, and self-giving. A peaceful and harmonious life devoid of malice, bitterness, slander, wrath, wrangling and anger against one another. This is what it takes for a perfect Christian communion in Christ Jesus.
The Eucharistic meal and celebration is a peace offering of brothers and sisters with one heart and one soul. It is also the unity of one spirit in Christ Jesus. One who partakes in this meal must not harbour bitterness, hatred, anger or forgiveness against a fellow brother or sister.
In a nutshell, this passage is behavioural instructions of Paul to the Ephesian Christians on the fundamental way for a follower of Christ to behaviour in interpersonal relationships. Hence, the foundational heartbeat of our unity in the one body of Christ is established and sounded through how we live out our lives. Especially how this unity is in our ongoing interrelationships with one another.
The Christian communal living in the community demands of us actions and attitudes to foster peace, harmony and unity. This is one thing the Eucharistic meal or celebration does for us in Christ Jesus through the loving act of the Holy Spirit.
THE GOSPEL: JOHN 6:41-51
Jesus continues his discourse on the Eucharistic meal of his body and blood, the food to eternal life. This is one of the most fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ. Where he presents himself as the manna from heaven or the living bread from heaven. Therefore, whoever eats this bread will live forever.
Sadly, Jesus teaching on the Eucharistic meal of himself to be the fountain, life and sustenance of us to eternal life did not go well with the people of his time nor with us in the present age. Just as it provokes reactions and rejections from the Jews. In the same way, it continues among Christian folds about the real presence, real foo and unbloodied sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharistic celebration.
EUCHARISTIC FAITH
Our belief or understanding of the Eucharistic body and blood of Christ cannot be fathomed through reason, theological discourses or biblical knowledge. It is a gift of faith granted by the Father to all those whom he draws to Christ. This Jesus declares openly: “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me”.
The belief and acceptance of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist can only be through the gift of grace and faith by God our Father. As well as his teaching on the Eucharist. That is, through the gift of faith can we come to believe in Christ when he affirms: “I am the bread of life.” “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh, for the life of the world.”
WHY IS THE EUCHARISTIC TEACHING DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT BY THE JEWS?
The gospel passage shows reasons why the Jews rejected Jesus, and in rejecting him, rejected eternal life.
- They judged things by human values and by external standards. Their reaction to the claim of Jesus as the bread that came from heaven was the simple fact that they knew as a son of carpenter Joseph. As well as they had seen him grow up in Nazareth with them. It was a tale of familiarity the breeds a deep contempt in those who knew his background and ordinariness as a person.
- The Jews argued with each other. They were so taken up with their private arguments that it never struck them to refer the decision to God. They took to traditional or theological discourses that they could not let God reveal the mystery and wisdom of his Godhead to them.
- The Jews listened, but they did not learn. There are different kinds of listening. There is the listening of criticism or the listening of resentment. There is also the listening of superiority or the listening of indifference.
Equally, there is the listening of the man who listens with a sense of compulsion. Just because at the moment, he cannot get the chance to speak. The only type of listening that counts is that which hears and learns, and that is the only way to listen to God.
- The Jews resisted the drawing of God to Christ Jesus. Indeed, it is only those who are drawn by God that can accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Always, there is this idea of resistance to God by man. God can draw men, but their resistance can defeat the pull of God to a life of grace, peace, and mercy in Christ Jesus.
- Often, their reasons for rejecting Christ by the Jews are also our reasons for not accepting the Eucharistic body and blood of Christ. We question sometimes, how can the bread and wine become Jesus the bread of life? The appearance of bread and wine are so familiar to us that we take for granted the miracle of God with whom nothing absolutely is impossible.
At the same time, instead of faith in the Word of God, we reduce the Eucharist to theological soundings, discussion or argument. We make the Eucharist all about reason than the gift of faith from God, who pull or draw us to Christ.
Jesus is the bread of life, and this means that he is essential for life. Both our physical and spiritual life is in Him. Hence, for us to refuse the invitation and command of Jesus is to miss life and be prone to death. The good news is that God the Father is always drawing us to his Son. Our coming to Jesus, our growth in our relationship with him, is not all down to us. God the Father is at work in our lives pulling us towards his Son, drawing us towards Jesus.
FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS
In our life journey amid all its burdens, stresses and disappointment, how often do we make out time to rest by trusting in God to take charge? Where is the fountain or sustenance of life or spiritual life? God in Christ Jesus? Money? Power? Things or persons?
How do you quench the hunger and the thirst in you? By seeking more pleasures or acquiring more material things? Or do you seek the Lord to fill in with riches of his fountain: his word or the Eucharist?
Do you approach the Eucharistic meal with a sense of unity and peace? Or with a sense of morality that trivialize sins like anger, lack of forgiveness or bitterness with others?
Do you actually believe in the real Eucharistic presence of Christ? In the Eucharistic meal of his body and blood? Is the Eucharistic presence and meal of Christ just something symbolic?
Do you allow yourself to be drawn in by God to Christ through faith? Or do you stick to reason as the only explanation to the Eucharistic Christ?
FUNDAMENTAL POINTS OF THIS SUNDAY
We need to eat the Living Bread from Heaven and be one with Jesus. “You are what you eat?” Jesus is the bread of life, and He wants us to eat his body which is real flesh. We need to accept the “Real Presence” of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist as an inspiring challenge. We need to appreciate the love of God for us, expressed in the Holy Eucharist.
We are participating in Christ when we are conscious, attentive and active in the Eucharistic celebration. The “Sacrifice of the Altar” is our participation in the entirety of Christ: – his life, ministry, crucifixion and death for our sins, Resurrection, and Ascension to Heaven. Each celebration of the Eucharist we participate in is an act of thanksgiving, reparation, petition and adoration of the Risen Christ.
OUR PRAYER
Eucharistic Christ, the Christian life and living in you, is a life of constant kindness to those around us, forgiveness of their annoyances and a tender-heartedness towards anyone in need. May the perfect model of living in Christ, our Eucharistic food and strength help us in our Christian journey amidst disappointments, frustrations and difficulties not to give up in life and on God. Amen!
