The Stuff of Life: Homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Ex 16:2-4, 12-15

Ps 78:3-4, 23-24 25, 54

Jn 6:24-35

 

It is no accident that the first reading from Exodus is paired with the Gospel narrative from John.  They are connected through the words of one of the most beautiful hymns of the Catholic Church.

 

In his Dictionary of Biblical Theology Jesuit Xavier Leon-Dufour writes about bread as follows:

 

"Bread, a gift of God, is for man the source of strength, a means of subsisting so essential that a lack of bread is a lack of everything. . . . In the Our Father bread

seems to sum up all the gifts that are necessary for us."

 

The idea of bread as essential, bread as a symbol of all that is necessary has carried forward into American English, or at least American slang.  In the past, when a guy would say, "I need some serious bread by tomorrow" he was generally not referring to slices of high fiber whole wheat. He needed money.  Lots of it.

 

Bread is referred to as the staff of life.  Bread is among the most necessary of foods, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and among the most satisfying of things to bake. The Gospel narrative refers to the multiplication of loaves and fish

that was related earlier in this sixth chapter of John.

 

The people were seeking Jesus, but they were doing so for the wrong reasons

because they misunderstood Him, His mission, and the miracle he performed. As Jesus noted, they were seeking him because he had fed them.  They weren't seeking him because of His message of the Kingdom of God. They wanted to find Jesus because they were satisfied by the food and perhaps wanted more

to nosh on during the trip home.  No one can truly know?

 

The crowed responded only to the superficial without attention

to Jesus’ message and meaning.  The same was true in the first reading.

God’s response to the defiant challenge of the people was  "So that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God"  The unspoken implication was “I will give you all that you  need.”

 

We just heard the people’s impertinent demand that referred back to the first reading. "What sign can you do that we may believe in you?  Our ancestors ate manna.  He (meaning Moses) gave them bread from heaven to eat."

 

Jesus responded,  "It was not Moses who gave bread from heaven. . . The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."  In response to their further plea to "give us this bread always: Jesus made an important theological statement that we must always remember. “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

 

This does not mean that we won't have to go to Stop 'n Shop at annoyingly frequent intervals for bread and other necessities.  And it doesn’t mean we won't have to go to the well daily.  Jesus is telling us that He is the true manna, the true bread from heaven, sent by the Father to nourish us always with His Real Presence in the sacrament of communion. 

 

The ancient hymn that  connects the first reading and the Gospel is Panis Angelicus which means Bread of Angels. I chose it for my first Mass

the day after ordination, and again at the Mass of thanksgiving  in my hometown the following week. When Pope Benedict visited Washington, D.C. I attended the Papal Mass in the baseball stadium.  Just as I was returning to my seat

after distributing communion, the orchestra played the intro to Panis Angelicus. And then the voice rang out:  Placido Domingo. Having always preferred Domingo to Pavarotti, had I been found dead in my seat afterwards

it would have been with a smile on my face. An interesting note is that Pope Benedict stepped down from his chair to greet Domingo, something he didn’t do for anyone else.  You can find the clip on YouTube.

 

There are many English translations of the Latin lyrics. All are meant to convey the message of the lyricist: St. Thomas Aquinas.

 

"The bread of the angels

became the bread of man;

the bread of heaven

was given visible form.

O wonder of wonders,

The Body of Christ

nourishes the poorest

and most humble of people."

 

In just a few minutes,  you will hear the words of consecration.  Listen carefully.

Let the words sink into your soul and remain there for the rest of this day.

 

May they dwell there for the rest of your lives. 

 

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I'd been looking for this set of photos for a very long time.  By set I mean the several hundred I took in Ljubljana in 2018.  They were on an old USB drive from which I hadn't transferred photos to a solid state drive.  I was ecstatic when I found them.  

 

 

This is not in an Orthodox church but is in . . . .

 

. . . this pizza place known as Pop's Pizza, begun by Greg Yurkovich whom I met on an earlier visit after he started Pop's Place (burgers). 

Another of Pop's Pizza.  Had several pizzas there.  Excellent. 

Standing out in front of the place with Greg and an American buddy.  They were talking I was simply looking and captured this woman walking down one of my favorite alleys.

A nearby fountain.

Will be on retreat from 16 August to 26 August.    There will be no posts during that time. 

 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD