The gospel for the 20th Sunday of OT Year B, continues the theme of the previous Sunday. The present selection has been identified as containing the sacramental theme of the Discourse of the Bread of Life. Read this article My Flesh is Real Food" before proceeding.
1. In the Our Father we pray: "Give us this day our daily bread" "Daily" is the way we translate a strange Greek word appearing only in Matthew epiousiov epiousios which St. Jerome translated as "supersubstantialis", roughly "super essential". The Catechism explains the word in a three-fold sense: temporal, qualitatively and literally.
Taken in the temporal sense, this word is a pedagogical repetition of "this day" to confirm us in trust "without reservation." Taken in the qualitative sense, it signifies what is necessary for life, and more broadly every good thing sufficient for subsistence. Taken literally, it refers directly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, the "medicine of immortality" without which we have no life within us (John 6:53-56)... (CCC, 2837)
Thus, when we pray the Our Father, we not only pray for the bread that we could set at table, we also pray for the Bread that gives us eternal life, because we cannot live without it.
- Reflect
- In John 6: 56 Jesus says "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him". In John 15:5 we find Jesus saying "I am the Vine, you are the branches, whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit. For without me you cannot do anything." When we receive the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, we are actually receiving that same Life which would allow us to bear fruit, the fruits that St. Paul lists in Galatians 5:5 as "fruits of the Spirit." Thus the Eucharist and Christian morality is linked: Christian daily life is the Life of Christ lived by this or that Christian. How do you see the connection between your daily life and your participation in the Eucharistic table?
2. In CCC 1391-1401 discusses the effects of Holy Communion. It
(a) augments our union with Christ (1391-1392)
(b) separates us from sin (1393-1395)
(c) makes us into the Church (1396)
(d) commits us to the poor (1397)
(e) moves us towards unity with other Christians (1398-1401)
- Reflect
-
- Holy Communion helps us mature as Christians. The "seeds of eternal life" already sown in us in baptism flourish and bear fruit through our regular reception of the Eucharist.
- The more we receive Communion, the more we move away from sin. Sin and Christ are mutually exclusive.
- We become "Church" -- the Body of Christ -- as we allow ourselves to be assimilated into Him in Communion. Thus, we too become responsive to His call (Come --> Stay --> Go) and become His extensions for our contemporaries.
- In Holy Communion, we become like St. Francis, recognizing Christ in the poorest ("Whatever you did to the least of my brothers, you did it to Me"). The poor are loved by Christ not because they are good (for many are really bad), but simply because Christ loves them. To be committed to the poor is to be committed to Christ who loved them with the love of the Good Shepherd.
- Finally, Holy Communion makes us aware of the scandal of the disunity of Christians and make us sensitive to the invitations to unity. (This is a complicated issue that has been discussed in Councils. There is just one rule for the Catholic: whatever methods of ecumenism you are involved in, remember two things: do not forget that you are a Catholic and Christian unity does not mean you leaving your Church)
