Fr. Alex Roman sx
This coming Sunday, 20th of Ordinary Time, the Gospel presents to us Jesus as the living bread that comes down from heaven. The crowd that listens to Jesus does not agree with him, and much less they accept that he is the living bread come down from heaven that gives eternal life.
People do not recognize in Jesus his divine origin because he is a normal man; thus, Jesus reveals that life comes to us from his humanity, from his flesh offered for the life of the world. That is the gift that God himself makes to humanity. Jesus is the Word that becomes flesh, so that in him every flesh finds the Word.
Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus is a very harsh and crude language; here believing in Jesus means eating him, because man assimilates what he eats or rather becomes what he loves. Thus, we love and eat his flesh and become children of God. Jesus reveals himself as the fulfilment of the Covenant, of the exodus and from before creation and this is also what Jesus means: God's plan that communicates a different life for all humanity.
Eat and assimilate him, beloved son of the father, who loves his brothers and the new law. In the gift of the flesh and blood (eating is believing) of the son of God, the gift of God is revealed and fulfilled, thus we welcome: God as Father and ourselves as Sons in the Son. Because he came to give man a life that will no longer be touched by death, in the Eucharist man celebrates the new and definitive Covenant between heaven and earth.
This coming Sunday, 20th of Ordinary Time, the Gospel presents to us Jesus as the living bread that comes down from heaven. The crowd that listens to Jesus does not agree with him, and much less they accept that he is the living bread come down from heaven that gives eternal life.
People do not recognize in Jesus his divine origin because he is a normal man; thus, Jesus reveals that life comes to us from his humanity, from his flesh offered for the life of the world. That is the gift that God himself makes to humanity. Jesus is the Word that becomes flesh, so that in him every flesh finds the Word.
Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus is a very harsh and crude language; here believing in Jesus means eating him, because man assimilates what he eats or rather becomes what he loves. Thus, we love and eat his flesh and become children of God. Jesus reveals himself as the fulfilment of the Covenant, of the exodus and from before creation and this is also what Jesus means: God's plan that communicates a different life for all humanity.
Eat and assimilate him, beloved son of the father, who loves his brothers and the new law. In the gift of the flesh and blood (eating is believing) of the son of God, the gift of God is revealed and fulfilled, thus we welcome: God as Father and ourselves as Sons in the Son. Because he came to give man a life that will no longer be touched by death, in the Eucharist man celebrates the new and definitive Covenant between heaven and earth.