I Am The Staff of Life!!!!!!!!
While
Jesus touches on the Eucharist at the end of the gospel today, it is important
for Catholics to remember that Christ Jesus is talking about Himself as the
whole magilla. True, next Sunday most of the gospel is about Jesus as “the bread of life” in the
Eucharist. Still, the main thrust of the
sermon on the bread of life is about Himself as what it is that make us
authentic human persons within God's Universe.
Catholics
believe that God is in our deepest DNA. We believe that where the Father is,
Christ is present in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Christ Jesus is already within
us.
As St. Paul tells us this
morning, this intimacy mean there
should not be within us any bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling or
malice, because Christ lives in us and we live in Christ. As a result, we try
to be imitators of Christ by being people of kindness, forgiveness, compassion.
Do you
notice how we don't see too much that in contemporary life in our nation today?
Check out political debates and #1 movies this weekend. How much there?
Politicians within both major parties frequently take snipes at one another in
thirty second soundbits, which is the little what we are being programmed to
retain. Coming attractions at movies show trailers, one after another, of
movies so violent, that one might see hundreds of people slain in trailers.
Then, we are surprised at gun violence in the USA. Don’t you love it?
In the
Gospel today, they murmur against Jesus because they think they know who is
really is. They think that they have him figured out. However, how wrong they
were! So frequently, we ourselves think we know who Jesus is or should be on
our terms. Just like yourself, Jesus is a mystery, someone infinitely knowable
and unknowable simultaneously. We never stop learning about ourselves.
Therefore, we never stop learning about Jesus.
This
week, someone said to me that since we heard when we were younger, bread is the staff of life, it might be
appropriate in this portion of the sermon to hear Jesus refer to himself. (In
next Sunday’s gospel, Jesus will speak directly on a Eucharistic tangent.) He
is our bread, our food, our sustenance, our mainstay, our staff of life because He is nearer to us than we know. Remember
St. Paul's words, Christ
lives in me and I live in Christ. I still live my human life but it is a life
of faith in the son of God who lived me and gave Himself for me. Words
fail to capture the meaning. I am the
staff of life. I, Jesus, am what you need to live a fully human life. 080915AD jfq
