Fwd: JOHN 6:44-51: THURSDAY'S GOSPEL FOR REFLECTION
Obi OBIEKWE
Subject: JOHN 6:44-51: THURSDAY'S GOSPEL FOR REFLECTION
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
For: Thursday, May 11, 2000
3rd Week of Easter
From: John 6:44-51
The Discourse on the Bread of Life (Continuation)
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(Jesus said to the Jews,) [44] "No one can come to Me unless the Father
who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.
[45] It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by
God.' Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.
[46] Not that any one has seen the Father except Him who is from God;
He has seen the Father. [47] Truly, truly, I say to you, he who
believes has eternal life. [48] I am the bread of life. [49] Your
fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. [50] This is
the bread which comes down from Heaven, that a man may eat of it and
not die. [51] I am the living bread which came down from Heaven; if
any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which
I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh."
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Commentary:
44-45. Seeking Jesus until one finds Him is a free gift which no one
can obtain through his own efforts, although everyone should try to be
well disposed to receiving it. The Magisterium of the Church has
recalled this teaching in Vatican II: "Before this faith can be
exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he
must have the interior help of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and
converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and makes it easy
for all to accept and believe the truth" ("Dei Verbum", 5).
When Jesus says, "They shall all be taught by God", He is invoking
Isaiah 54:13 and Jeremiah 31:33ff, where the prophets refer to the
future Covenant which God will establish with His people when the
Messiah comes, the Covenant which will be sealed forever with the blood
of the Messiah and which God will write on their hearts (cf. Isaiah
53:10-12; Jeremiah 31:31-34).
The last sentence of verse 45 refers to God's Revelation through the
prophets and especially through Jesus Christ.
46. Men can know God the Father only through Jesus Christ, because only
He has seen the Father, whom He has come to reveal to us. In his
prologue St. John already said: "No one has ever seen God; the only
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known" (John
1:18). Later on Jesus will say to Philip at the Last Supper: "He who
has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), for Christ is the Way,
the Truth and the Life, and no one goes to the Father except through
Him (cf. John 14:6).
In other words, in Christ God's revelation to men reaches its climax:
"For He sent His Son, the eternal Word who enlightens all men, to dwell
among men and to tell them about the inner life of God (cf. John
1:1-18). Hence, Jesus Christ, sent as `a man among men', `utters the
words of God' (John 3:34), and accomplishes the saving work which the
Father gave Him to do (cf. John 5:36; 17:4). To see Jesus is to see
His Father (cf. John 14:9)" (Vatican II, "Dei Verbum", 4).
48. With this solemn declaration, which He repeats because of His
audience's doubts, (cf. John 6:35, 41, 48), Jesus begins the second
part of His discourse, in which He explicitly reveals the great mystery
of the Blessed Eucharist. Christ's words have such a tremendous
realism about them that they cannot be interpreted in a figurative way:
if Christ were not really present under the species of bread and wine,
this discourse would make absolutely no sense. But if His real
presence in the Eucharist is accepted on faith, then His meaning is
quite clear and we can see how infinite and tender His love for us is.
This is so great a mystery that it has always acted as a touchstone for
Christian faith: it is proclaimed as "the mystery of our faith"
immediately after the Consecration of the Mass. Some of our Lord's
hearers were scandalized by what He said on this occasion (cf. verses
60-66). Down through history people have tried to dilute the obvious
meaning of our Lord's words. In our own day the Magisterium of the
Church has explained this teaching in these words" "When
Transubstantiation has taken place, there is no doubt that the
appearance of the bread and the appearance of the wine take on a new
expressiveness and a new purpose since they are no longer common bread
and common drink, but rather the sign of something sacred and the sign
of spiritual food. But they take on a new expressiveness and a new
purpose for the very reason that they contain a new `reality' which we
are right to call "ontological". For beneath these appearances there
is no longer what was there before but something quite different [...]
since on the conversion of the bread and wine's substance, or nature,
into the body and blood of Christ, nothing is left of the bread and the
wine but the appearances alone. Beneath these appearances Christ is
present whole and entire, bodily present too, in His physical
`reality', although not in the manner in which bodies are present in
place.
`For this reason the Fathers have had to issue frequent warnings to the
faithful, when they consider this august Sacrament, not to be satisfied
with the senses which announce the properties of bread and wine. They
should rather assent to the words of Christ: these are of such power
that they change, transform, `transelement' the bread and the wine into
His body and blood. The reason for this, as the same Fathers say more
than once, is that the power which performs this action is the same
power of Almighty God that created the whole universe out of nothing at
the beginning of time" (Paul VI, "Mysterium Fidei").
49-51. The manna during the Exodus was a figure of this bread--Christ
Himself--which nourishes Christians on their pilgrimage through this
world. Communion is the wonderful banquet at which Christ gives
Himself to us: "the bread which I shall give for the life of the world
is My flesh". These words promise the manifestation of the Eucharist
at the Last Supper: "This is My body which is for you" (1 Corinthians
11:24). The words "for the life of the world" and "for you" refer to
the redemptive value of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In some
sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were a figure of the sacrifice
of Christ, part of the animal offered up was later used for food,
signifying participation in the sacred rite (cf. Exodus 11:3-4). So,
by receiving Holy Communion, we are sharing in the sacrifice of
Christ: which is why the Church sings in the Liturgy of the Hours on
the Feast of Corpus Christi: "O sacred feast in which we partake of
Christ: His sufferings are remembered, our minds are filled with His
grace and we receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours"
("Magnificat Antiphon", Evening Prayer II).
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Set your mind on God's kingdom +
+ and His justice before everything else, +
+ and all the rest will come to you as well. +
+ (Matthew 6:33) +
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