The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, 18 August 2024
Proverbs 9:1-6 ><}}}}*> Ephesians 5:15-20 ><}}}}*> John 6:51-58
It is our fourth consecutive Sunday listening to the sixth chapter of John’s gospel that opened with the miraculous feeding by Jesus of more than five thousand people in a deserted place; Jesus fled from there, went back in Capernaum where people caught with Him and disciples as He began three Sundays ago His “Bread of Life” discourse now getting deeper while the drama among the crowd is heating up.
From murmuring last Sunday about Jesus who said “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (Jn.6:41), the people today quarreled among themselves after Jesus said “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. 6:51).
Notice the beautiful contrast of reactions by people to Jesus: from murmuring last Sunday, they sank deep into quarreling while Jesus leveled up to “the living bread from heaven” from merely “the bread from heaven” last week. For us to live well, we have to eat well by having Jesus Himself as our food and drink.
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me” (John 6:52-57).
Eating is the most common human activity anywhere, any time. Human life basically revolves around eating as we have seen since time immemorial how we have progressed following our search for food. We work to feed ourselves and loved ones. Without food, we die. Food is so essential that there is always food to share in our gatherings.
That is why Jesus chose the bread and wine as the signs of His living presence among us in the Holy Eucharist He established during the Last Supper on Holy Thursday. In the Eucharist, Jesus elevated the most ordinary human activity of eating as most sublime and Divine. In the Holy Mass, we share in Christ’s Body and Blood so we too may share our very selves with one another.
When Jesus said in Capernaum that the bread He is giving is His own flesh with His blood as drink, He was already preparing the people for the Eucharist while at the same time teaching them that eating is not everything. We have to eat well to live well. When tempted by the devil in the wilderness, Jesus right away taught us to remember that man does not live by bread alone but with every word from God. At the start of this discourse last August 04, Jesus challenged the people, “Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (Jn.6:27).
Many times, we get so used in our many activities that unconsciously, we miss life itself as we punish ourselves with exhaustion and sickness as well as emptiness.
Food is not just something that fills our stomach but must also lead into our heart and soul. Observe any cuisine and you get a taste of the culture and people it represents, even with strong hints of its geographical origin. In the first reading we find how the Book of Proverbs personified Wisdom as God to remind us that though He is transcendent and so above us, God is easily accessed even in the most ordinary instances like eating.
Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table. She has sent out her maidens; she calls from the heights out over the city: “Let whoever is simple turn in here; to him who lacks understanding, I say, Come, eat of my food, drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding” (Proverbs 9:1-6).
How lovely is that part of God calling us to come like Jesus in the gospel when He said “come to me all who are burdened” or when He ordered to “let the children come to me”. Is it not the same thing we say when we are about to eat, to come and get it?
Sadly these days, we seem to have retrogressed in our manner of eating. Social media rightly labeled it as “food porn” when we are flooded with everything about food and drinks minus its deeper meanings. Food is sadly seen in its material aspect that eating is more on filling the stomach, forgetting the soul because we have totally forgotten God and the people around us. No wonder that despite the growing food production and plethora of food we have these days, many still starve while the rest of us remain lost in life, more sick.
See, my dear friends, the great coincidence on the very Sunday Jesus began his bread of life discourse, it was also the opening of the Paris Olympics with a mockery of the Last Supper that led us into a kind of “quarrel” as organizers and their supporters insisted it wasn’t the Last Supper at all despite the clear indications and proofs.
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Suddenly, we heard anew that same question by the people in Capernaum to Jesus reechoed in the Olympics at the capital city of the Church’s so-called “eldest daughter”, France. Of course, we know this bread of life discourse by Jesus refers to the Holy Eucharist and surely, the many defenders of the Paris Olympics are aware for many of them are Catholics. But, Jesus must have willed this gospel be proclaimed at this time coinciding with the Olympics for us to evaluate anew our faith in Him because at the very core of this bread of life discourse is the mystery of faith.
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” In the gospel of Luke, we find a similar question by Mary at the Annunciation that is filled with faith, “How can this be?” (Lk.1:34); but today, like in Capernaum as exemplified by the Paris Olympics, that question is a renewed refusal to believe in the words of Jesus Christ. Worst of all as we noted earlier in our perceptions of food and eating these days, that question shows modern man’s insistence on everything material, totally disregarding our spiritual nature.
Like in Capernaum, many people today who refuse to believe Christ’s words resort to malicious and insidious arguments that it becomes useless to really converse with them as they would rather insist on their grossly material understanding and perception of life these days. Many prefer to quarrel these days than accept life’s many mysteries not merely seen nor tasted by the senses but experienced and realized through faith in God.
Life for them has become merely material which in Greek is bios as in biology. There is another Greek word for life which is zoe that refers to the eternal, divine life of God that Jesus repeatedly used in our gospel today.
Like last Sunday, Jesus did not engage Himself into debating with the crowd in Capernaum by simply repeating the words living and life to emphasize the total acceptance of Him – Body and Blood – in faith: “I am the living bread… my flesh for the life of the world. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” These are the very same words too, life and living that Jesus would mention before His Passion and Death as well as after His Resurrection because eating His flesh and drinking His blood is to share in His life that is also the fullness of life. It is only in Christ Jesus can we find fulfillment in life. Let us pray:
Lord Jesus Christ,
help me watch carefully
how I live, not as a fool
but as wise as St. Paul taught
us today in his letter to the Ephesians;
let us not be intoxicated
with life's pleasures and worldly pursuits
but let us be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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