August 12, 2012
19th Sunday Ordinary Time
Girls and boys in the 1st and 2nd grades placed earth boxes on my patio behind the rectory. I am harvesting a rich harvest of tomatoes! My diet has been supplemented with fresh vegetables. Or are tomatoes fruit? We better appreciate the importance of good food for our overall physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. In our 1st reading (Book of Kings) Elijah, fleeing for his life, collapses physically exhausted and mentally, emotionally and spiritually spent. He is depressed wishing to die. God sends a messenger (an angel) with food (scones/hearth cakes) and water. After a second portion, Elijah gets up and walks forty days and nights to God's Holy Mountain where he experiences God not in wind, earthquake or fire, but in a quiet whispering sound. There on the mountain of the covenant, in the presence of God, Elijah's prophetic mission is renewed. In our Gospel, Jesus continues to underscore the importance of the "bread" as spiritual nourishment ~ the living Word of God. John, the evangelist, presents Jesus as the spokesman of God's revelation and wisdom. But Jesus is much more. Jesus is the Bread of Life. Jesus is the Word of God. After speaking of the bread as the living Word of God, Jesus says: "The bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." As we slowly reflect on the Bread of Life discourse in Chapter 6 of the Gospel according to John we see a similar parallel at Mass where we are spiritually nourished during the liturgy of the Word and then we are nourished with the very life of Christ in Eucharist, the bread and wine, His Body and Blood. It will be for us who receive a taste of eternal life. St. Paul in the 2nd reading, his letter to the Ephesians, writes of what takes place within the body (believing community) when we receive Word and Eucharist. Bitterness, fury, anger, reviling and shouting dissipate and are replaced with kindness and compassion. We become what we receive.
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18th Sunday Ordinary Time
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Assumption
