Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XIX per Annum B
11 August 2024

 We are currently in a tour through the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, known as the Bread of Life discourse.  This chapter is a prime location of Jesus’ teaching about the Holy Eucharist, that ordinary bread and wine become his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  So important is this element of our faith, that it can be said, we are not truly catholic if we do not accept that the bread and wine consecrated at Holy Mass in the Catholic Church are the Lord’s true Body and Blood.  Notice that I did not say: we are not truly catholic if we do not understand how bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus.  No, not understanding is one thing, and it can be improved and perfected.  But not accepting, refusing to accept, makes one not catholic.  Our affirmation of the clear scriptural teaching about bread and wine becoming the true and real Body and Blood of Jesus is something that requires from us an act of faith; faith that Jesus is God and he does what he says.

In this third Sunday installment from John chapter 6, we are getting to the threshold of Jesus’ teaching that his Body and Blood are food for disciples, and that he will give us this food in the Holy Eucharist.  But before we hear that next weekend, the Lord focuses attention on the manna, this bread from heaven, that the Jewish ancestors had received in the desert wanderings.  The Lord is using the manna to reveal two mysteries: the mystery of his divinity and, then, the mystery of the Holy Eucharist.  This weekend I want to focus our attention on only the first mystery, what precedes the teaching on the Holy Eucharist, namely the divinity of Jesus and the pre-requisite that we accept that Jesus is God.

In the Gospel selection today, the Lord uses the manna as a metaphor, as a sign which serves to communicate that he has come down from heaven.  In other words, the foundational lesson before we hear the Lord teach forcefully about the Holy Eucharist, is that just like the manna came down from heaven and was divine in origin, likewise Jesus is divine in origin.  He is the Bread of Life come down from heaven.  This is an important revelation that Jesus is claiming to be God.  And this revelation demands belief.  In fact, to first believe and express faith in the divinity of Jesus, makes it much easier to accept the next step – namely, that he gives himself as food and makes bread and wine become his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.  Thus, we can see how important it is that we consider the implications that Jesus is God.  This cannot be only something we say, as words on the lips.  It needs to be something that changes the way we live and the way we prioritize things in life.  Jesus is God.  He has come into our midst in the world.  He loves us.  He saves us.  And He does not abandon us.  He remains with us by the Holy Spirit dwelling within us in the Church.  And a particular gift of His presence is that the Holy Eucharist is his very self.  The manna came down from heaven.  Jesus teaches that he is the true manna.  He has come down from heaven, meaning he is God incarnate.  If we can accept that Jesus is God, how could we fail to accept that he makes bread and wine into his very self?

This teaching in John 6 sort of takes us all back to simpler days in second grade when a young catholic prepares to receive Holy Communion for the first time.  Ask a Catholic in second grade what the Holy Eucharist is and he will say, “It is Jesus”.  Ask the child how that can be, and he might say, “I don’t know.  But Jesus is God and He said so.  He makes it happen.”  And you know what?  That is true, and that is enough to have sufficient catholic faith in the Holy Eucharist!  Now, as we grow we want to have our understanding grow too.  I am not saying our childhood, or teenage, or young adult faith should not grow.  I am not saying we should stay with that second-grade proclamation.  No, we should seek to understand more as we age.  But the bottom line is that Jesus is God and if we believe that, then what he says about his flesh being true food in the Holy Eucharist is easier to accept in fidelity to what he clearly teaches in John 6 (which we will hear next weekend).

The first mystery that is revealed by referencing the manna from the Old Testament is that Jesus is asking his listeners to believe that he is God.  He is asking for faith from them and from us who hear his words today.  The response of the listeners in the Gospel passage reveals that they understand what Jesus is demanding of them.  Several times we hear that his listeners are murmuring about this and casting doubt amongst themselves.  The whole context here is instructive.  What was the chief struggle for God’s people as they wandered the desert for 40 years?  The struggle was to believe in the one true God and that God was with them as they suffered in the harsh atmosphere of the desert.  The struggle was to believe that God had not abandoned them, but that He cared for them, and was providing for them.  In the desert they murmured.  They complained.  And they doubted.  This is similar to what is going on in the gospel.  In today’s passage, we have still more evidence of the refusal to believe in the way the Jews react to Jesus’ claim that he has come down from heaven.  They say, “Is this not… the son of Joseph?  Do we not know his father and mother?  Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

 I want to challenge us to confront our own murmurings, by which I mean, the ways we do not accept that Jesus is God, or doubt that he is near and working among us.  I want to focus on two ways we might struggle with murmurings.  The first is easy to name, it is the murmuring that rejects wholesale that Jesus is God.  It is a murmuring of apostasy or atheism, the refusal to believe that Jesus is God.  I doubt such murmuring marks many of us here.  But if that type of murmuring does mark you, then you want to confess it and act against it by seeking to build your faith, praying that God give you the gift of faith, and seeking friendship among believers, which can serve to encourage your faith.  The second form of murmuring, can be harder to define, and it may well be something we believers need to confront.  To identify this type of murmuring, this limiting of Jesus, we might ask ourselves, does our stated faith that Jesus is God matter to us?  Do we let that faith make demands on our life?  Is that stated faith visible in how we live, in how we prioritize our life, and the things we do each day?  This way of confronting murmuring is the call to move from faith on the lips only, to a faith that rests our security, our present life, and future life on the truth that Jesus is God and He is with us.  This second type of murmuring can mark even us.  Is God a priority in my life?  I might never dream of skipping Sunday Mass, but Monday through Friday… is there much evidence that God is a priority?  Do I seek to grow in awareness of the presence of God by daily prayer, frequent confession, and worthy reception of Holy Communion as often as possible?  Or do I let the day get away from me, with barely a moment given to pray?  Do I come to God only when I think I need something, or when I want something?  Do I treat God as a type of vending machine?  I come on my terms and expect Him to pump out what I want when I give Him the slightest attention.  Is my vision about life in this world, a godly vision?  Do I see my life and the world around me as created to be good and profoundly loved by God?  Is there anything I owe God with the gift of my life?   And will I give it?  Unknowingly, have the struggles in my life, my “desert wanderings”, caused me to live as a Christian in such a way that I am really murmuring against the Lord, doubting his ability as God?  When we confront our murmuring, and seek to reject it, it makes living the faith a more vibrant thing.  It makes coming to the sacraments something more rich.  It makes it easier to give time to God in prayer.  It makes sacrificial giving of my resources easier too.  It makes it possible to respond to my vocation, believing that God will give me what I need to accomplish it.  Rejecting our murmuring so that we grow in faith, makes us more receptive to all the blessings God wants to give us, but which our lack of faith can stifle.  Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.”  In other words, for us to believe in God it is necessary that we let Him pour out His grace upon us.  So, will we do the things that can help faith and strengthen it?  Or will we do the bare minimum in our murmuring?  Before we get to belief in the Holy Eucharist, we need to first work on the lesson of today’s Gospel passage: the call to believe that Jesus is God.  As we have these privileged weeks to reflect on our Catholic faith in the Holy Eucharist, I want to encourage you to acknowledge wherever you are in your faith and to consider what murmurings can tend to creep in.  Especially as regards growing in proper Eucharistic faith, I want to encourage you to come before the Lord in our chapel for adoration.  Even if you don’t think you have enough Catholic faith in the Holy Eucharist, the place to start is to acknowledge Jesus as God.  Come to be in the godly place of our chapel and ask the Lord to reveal Himself to you so that you know him to be God, and so that your faith in the Holy Eucharist can grow.  Prepare yourself in advance for Holy Mass, reading the Sunday readings and naming what specific intentions or prayers you have for each Mass, things and needs you want to lift up at Mass when the priest lifts up the offerings at the altar.  These practices can help to prepare each of us for stronger faith and for what the Lord said in the midst of the murmuring in the Gospel, “It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God.”