Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Love becomes food for the others
The Jews murmured about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Jn 6,41-51
The mystery of love of the Eucharist is almost unfathomable, and, as deep as we may ponder the words of today’s Gospel, only faith allows the mind and the heart yield to it. We can, however, try to get a little closer to the idea of the total gift into which Christ turns himself, by using some analogies taken from our life experiences. The sweetest one to remember is, perhaps, that of mothers who breastfeed their babies: mother’s love is expressed in giving herself, in becoming food that gives life and makes one grow. And the baby, a creature so fragile, has the feeling of depending on that embrace, it looks for it, it is restless until it feels it, and then it let itself go to it, confidently, getting satisfied with both milk and love. When the baby grows older, if he or she is a believer, a man or a woman can relive the same desire for food which gives life and satisfy it, by receiving the Eucharist. Answering the invitation which Christ makes to us offering himself to us really means to feed on his love and assimilate a particle of his divinity. And like the link between a mother and her baby is indissoluble, to the point that we call her name when we are in suffering (as we are often told about wounded soldiers at the front), so each believer lives in the sense of union with God. Help us, Lord, not so much to understand the mystery of the Eucharist, but above all to welcome it with faith so that we become capable of giving ourselves to others.