Here’s my homily for this week. God bless you all!
18th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Ex 16:2-4, 12-15; Eph 4:17, 20-24; John 6:24-35
August 3-4, 2024
Have you ever had to walk a long way without food or water? Perhaps some of you who have served in the armed forces remember those marches in boot camp. Maybe others here have been lost for a day or two in the wilderness and had to find your way without food or water. I recall my earlier years as a long distance runner and struggling through ultra-marathons – over 30 miles.
To have to travel long distances without food and water is not only very difficult, it is extremely dangerous, without being prepared. You soon will collapse and be unable to continue the journey. Yet, we regain our strength quickly after eating and drinking. We are quick to recover.
What would you say if someone were to tell you “Prepare yourself to eat this once a week and drink this once a week, every week and you will live forever, but if you are unprepared to eat and drink, you will die!”? What would you think? What if an angel poked you in the ribs when you were exhausted and down and out from the demands of daily life – work, family, community – and what if that angel were to tell you that if you eat this and drink that you will be able to go a long way?
The question is, “What is it that sustains you in your life, especially when life may seem dry and exhausting? To whom or to what do you turn? What is the source of your strength?”
We hear in the first reading today that God’s people grumbled against God and Moses because they were hungry and thirsty. They were unprepared for the long journey. We hear how God prepared them, told them what they needed to do so as to eat the manna he would give them and the flesh that would sustain them on their long, 40 year journey through the desert. God said He would test them to see whether they would follow His instructions.
The older I get, the more I can identify with the weariness of the Hebrew people in the desert. The older I get, the more I realize how little I need to grumble and complain and how much I need to be fed and refreshed frequently. The older I get, the more I realize in other words, how much I need the Bread of Life that sustains me and the Word of God that refreshes my soul.
My friends, we as Catholics know that we cannot spiritually live without the Mass, without the Eucharist, without receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus. It is the source and summit of our lives. It is the source of our strength. It is the source of our lives as Christians! We are to be fed by his Body and strengthened by his Blood.
In this week’s first reading from the book of Exodus the Hebrew people became hungry and thirsty when they left Egypt and traveled in the desert, and they began to murmur against God and Moses. Even though they were being fed with manna – bread sent from heaven – even though they drank from the spring of water gushing from the rock, they grumbled.
In today’s Gospel we hear how Jesus Himself says that He is the Bread of Life. He Himself will sustain us with His very Body and Blood. If we eat His Body and drink His blood, we will have eternal life. He gives us Himself so we can live, now on this earth, and forever in eternity. If we worthily receive Him, we will be refreshed and strengthened to live the lives we are to live, even if our lives are lived in a desert, so to speak.
So, we can ask ourselves, do we grumble about our lives? Do we grumble against God and his Church, even though each day we can be fed with the Body of Christ and refreshed with his Blood? Why do we murmur and grumble? Is it because we don’t listen to the Truth?
Somewhere it is written, Truth stands alone, but error requires the grumbling of many people. God’s Word is truth. The Body and Blood of Jesus is the Truth. Truth is powerful; grumbling and murmuring are weak.
If we don’t listen to God’s word of truth then we will not believe. We will lack faith. Faith comes from hearing God’s word spoken and proclaimed by his sacred ministers – the bishops, priests and deacons. Faith comes from acknowledging the truth of the Word of God. Faith comes from meeting Jesus Christ. If we listen to truth, then we will have faith and our hearts will be open to receive Jesus’ Real Presence and to the graces given to us in the Eucharist. If we do not listen and do not believe, then we turn away from our nourishment, we turn away from the Eucharist, we turn away from Jesus himself.
We all need to stop grumbling against God and the Church and start listening and believing!
God draws us and lifts us up with the Body and Blood of Jesus. Jesus takes us who have been called and raises us up to new life by our partaking of his Body and Blood which is a sharing in his life, death and resurrection. This is such a mystery! It is called the Paschal Mystery! It is a gift to which we must respond with faith, acceptance and gratitude, not with idle murmuring and disbelief.
Jesus gives us Himself in the Eucharist which sustains us on our journeys of faith.
My friends, God wants to feed you. God has sent his Son Jesus to accomplish this. Jesus gives us living bread from heaven. That bread is Jesus himself. We must come to believe in him and eat his Body and drink his Blood in order to have life. The bread that Jesus gives is in fact his flesh and blood.
