Catechism Links:
CCC 1333-1336:
Eucharistic signs of bread and wine
CCC 1691-1696:
life in Christ
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| ” The Gathering of the Manna” by Guido Reni, 1614-15 |
Reading 1: Exodus
16:2-4, 12-15
The whole Israelite community
grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
The Israelites said to them,
“Would that we had died at
the LORD’s hand in the land
of Egypt
as we sat by our fleshpots
and ate our fill of bread!
But you had to lead us into
this desert
to make the whole community
die of famine!”
Then the LORD said to Moses,
“I will now rain down bread
from heaven for you.
Each day the people are to go
out and gather their daily portion;
thus will I test them,
to see whether they follow my
instructions or not.
“I have heard the grumbling
of the Israelites.
Tell them: In the evening
twilight you shall eat flesh,
and in the morning you shall
have your fill of bread,
so that you may know that I,
the LORD, am your God.”
In the evening quail came up
and covered the camp.
In the morning a dew lay all
about the camp,
and when the dew evaporated,
there on the surface of the desert
were fine flakes like
hoarfrost on the ground.
On seeing it, the Israelites
asked one another, “What is this?”
for they did not know what it
was.
But Moses told them,
“This is the bread that the
LORD has given you to eat.”
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Commentary on Ex 16:2-4, 12-15
Having
successfully escaped from Egypt and Pharaoh’s army, the Israelites now find
themselves in difficult surroundings with little food. In response to their
plight, God feeds them through the auspices of Moses by providing Manna to
sustain them. This “Bread from heaven” is seen as a gift from God, the manna is
said to come down from the sky.(see also Psalm 78:25; Wisdom 16:20). This manna is later compared by Christ to the
Eucharist he offers (see John 6: 31ff).
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm
78:3-4, 23-24, 25, 54
R. (24b) The
Lord gave them bread from heaven.
What we have heard and know,
and what our fathers have
declared to us,
We will declare to the
generation to come
the glorious deeds of the
LORD and his strength
and the wonders that he
wrought.
R. The Lord gave them
bread from heaven.
He commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of
heaven;
he rained manna upon them for
food
and gave them heavenly bread.
R. The Lord gave them
bread from heaven.
Man ate the bread of angels,
food he sent them in
abundance.
And he brought them to his
holy land,
to the mountains his right
hand had won.
R. The Lord gave them
bread from heaven.
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Commentary on Ps 78:3-4, 23-24, 25, 54
Psalm 78 is a historical recital recounting the encounter
of the Israelites with God; their rejection of His gifts and the punishments
for these rejections. In this selection the psalmist recalls the journey in the
wilderness and the anger at God for leading them on without food. God answered
their plea with manna (Exodus 16:1ff).
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Reading II: Ephesians
4:17, 20-24
Brothers and sisters:
I declare and testify in the
Lord
that you must no longer live
as the Gentiles do,
in the futility of their
minds;
that is not how you learned
Christ,
assuming that you have heard
of him and were taught in him,
as truth is in Jesus,
that you should put away the
old self of your former way of life,
corrupted through deceitful
desires,
and be renewed in the spirit
of your minds,
and put on the new self,
created in God’s way in
righteousness and holiness of truth.
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Commentary on Eph 4:17, 20-24
as truth is in Jesus” (that is those who received authentic teaching about
Christ) live in the spirit as opposed to the flesh. He enjoins them to renew that spirit – to “…put on the new self”.
CCC: Eph 4:23 1695;
Eph 4:24 1473,
2475, 2504
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Gospel: John
6:24-35
When the crowd saw that
neither Jesus nor his disciples were there,
they themselves got into
boats
and came to Capernaum
And when they found him
across the sea they said to him,
“Rabbi, when did you get
here?”
Jesus answered them and said,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
you are looking for me not
because you saw signs
but because you ate the
loaves and were filled.
Do not work for food that
perishes
but for the food that endures
for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will
give you.
For on him the Father, God,
has set his seal.”
So they said to him,
“What can we do to accomplish
the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to
them,
“This is the work of God,
that you believe in the one he sent.”
So they said to him,
“What sign can you do, that
we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in
the desert, as it is written:
He gave them bread from
heaven to eat.”
So Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the
bread from heaven;
my Father gives you the true
bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that
which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.”
So they said to him,
“Sir, give us this bread
always.”
Jesus said to them,
“I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will
never hunger,
and whoever believes in me
will never thirst.”
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Commentary on Jn 6:24-35
This dialogue with the people
begins St. John’s great discourse on the bread of life. In this selection Jesus
begins by telling the crowd, which had just been witness to the feeding of the
multitude with the barley loaves, that they should focus on spiritual food
rather than filling their stomachs. His reference here is that through their
belief in him as the Son of God, they are doing God’s will.
The people misunderstand and think Jesus is asking for faith in
order to perform a sign (see also Mark 8:11, Matthew 16:1, and Luke 11:16) The Jews in dialogue with Jesus refer to the
favor shown by God, as in the desert following the exodus, God showered Manna
upon the people. They quote Nehemiah 9:15, again seeking physical bread when Jesus is
offering the spiritual. In this selection St. John provides the most solemn of
statements by Jesus which are unambiguous statements about his real presence in
the Eucharist: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never
hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” In this offer, Jesus provides sustenance for the spirit
while physical bread only supports the mortal body.
CCC: Jn 6 1338;
Jn 6:26-58 2835; Jn
6:27 698,
728, 1296; Jn 6:32 1094;
Jn 6:33 423
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Homily:
For the past thirty years or
so I have been involved in teaching the parents who have requested the
Sacrament of Baptism for their children.
Given my long history of doing this, I’m sure many of you were already
aware of this; in fact I have recently been instructing children whose parents
I also instructed (Now I’m feeling old).
Over the years I have learned the truth about teaching that says “teaching
well, the teacher also learns from their students.” That axiom was recently driven home as Deacon
Warren and I spoke with a small group of parents in our Baptismal Preparation
Class.
Because of the cosmopolitan
flavor of Ann Arbor, we frequently get couples with widely differing faith backgrounds. In a class not too long ago there were two
couples in which the husbands were of protestant faith backgrounds (one was Methodist
the other Evangelical). Part of our
discussion within the class is; when the faith experiences of the parents
differ, they need to agree on how elements of living the Christian life are
taught in the home (domestic church).
In the case of our two
husbands an issue was raised. They both
felt it was unfair that the Church would not allow them to receive communion.
They said they felt this was elitist, unwelcoming, and exclusionary. In both cases they were resentful of this
practice because they believed their understanding of communion should have
allowed them to participate with us.
I am sure our apology on the
Catholic understanding of the Eucharist provided at that time and our
explanation of our belief in the real presence of the Lord in the Eucharist was
incomplete and probably not persuasive.
But what that experience taught me was that even as we gather for our solemn
feast (Sunday Mass), there are those of us who are unaware of what we believe
about the bread and the wine that is our Communion.
To those present who may not
be of our faith, I first want to welcome you to our community and tell you that
you will always find here, people who are overjoyed that you have joined us in
worshiping the Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus who is the Christ, the long
promised Messiah; sent by God to open the doors of heaven which were shut by
the original sin of Adam and Eve’s disobedience.
We want you to understand that
we would love you to participate with us as fully as possible. In order to do so, however, there are a few
things we want you to understand. First
and foremost is our belief that the bread and wine we will share later in our
Holy Mass is not, in our eyes, simply bread and wine. Being a faith that developed our dogma and
beliefs out of the Holy Bible, we believe, as was recently proclaimed in the
Gospel according to St. John who recounted Jesus’ words when he said: “I am the bread of life.”
In other places in St. John’s
Gospel in what is known as the Bread of Life discourse, the Lord tells us
emphatically that what he leaves us is truly his body and blood. In the other Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and
Luke this reality is emphasized as the authors recount the Last Supper. Jesus said, after he had prayed over the gifts
of bread and wine: “This is my body…” and “This is my blood…”
We believe that when we
relive that event in the Eucharistic celebration that will follow. The promise he made is fulfilled in our
presence with his real presence, body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ in
what to our eyes may still be simple wafers and wine. For those of you who may
be Christians of other denominations I would pose this question; how would you
react if Jesus came and stood before you; not just an apparition, but
physically stood before you? Would you
not kneel? Would you not be awed and
humbled that the Savior of the World should come to you, a sinner?
Understanding what we believe
happens hear is central to our faith and worship and is important for you to
understand. It may even help you avoid
accidents. We reserve the bread that has
been transubstantiated into the Body of Christ in this large and ornate
cupboard we call the Tabernacle. We
believe that the essence of Jesus is stored here. His real presence makes this sacred space. You may have noticed that when we come in to
the nave (the part of our building where most of us sit) or the sanctuary (this
raised area where I now stand) we stop and genuflect. (I’ve known a few friends of other faiths who
have almost run into members of our parish because they stopped [unexpectedly]
to genuflect and the person behind had to avoid them somewhat acrobatically.)
I was not brought up
Catholic. My mother was Methodist and my
father was raised Lutheran. I was raised in the Congregationalist and
Presbyterian denominations. Because my
family was active, I participated in their communion ceremonies and know what
we believed about communion. It was a
symbolic act a simple remembrance of the Lord’s Supper. When we were done with the Welches grape
juice and cubes of white bread we used, the left overs were either dumped in
the trash or repurposed (e.g. we kids got a lot of grape juice).
If you come from a faith
tradition that shares these or similar beliefs about communion, can you see that
what we believe takes place during our Eucharistic celebration is radically
different? It is not because we do not
love you as fellow Christians that we do not want you sharing our
Eucharist. It is because we believe that
if you do not understand what you are doing, your spiritual self, the self that
St. Paul talks about to the Ephesians, will actually take harm.
It would be like finding a
diamond in the rough and thinking it was just a hunk of quartz. The diamonds we share are not quartz.
We are a Eucharistic people,
we Catholics. We fervently hope that we
become what we eat and believe that what we eat is the real and present body of
Christ. As I said at the beginning of my
remarks, we welcome all to share in our worship of Jesus and we love all of
you, since we are all God’s creatures.
We invite you to share our love of God and each other as our Lord taught
us. But, if you are not a member of the
Catholic Church we ask that you respect our reverence for the communion we
share, the Eucharist, the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Pax
In other years on August 2nd:
Optional Memorial for Saint Eusebius of Vercelli,
Bishop
[1]
ALTRE
[2]
The picture is ” The Gathering of the Manna”
by Guido Reni, 1614-15
[3]
Text of Readings
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