Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time -Pair Year

# Manna was the food of the Hebrews in the desert, according to the Old Testament, According to the book of Exodus: the Hebrews murmured against Moses because they were dying of hunger. In the evening, quail fell from the sky; the next morning, a mist or dew spread over them; when it had evaporated, something small, granular and fine, like frost on the ground, appeared on the surface of the desert (Ex 16, 14). Moses said to them : « This is the bread the Lord is giving you to eat ». And further on: « The house of Israel called the name of this food manna ». 

Manna fell from heaven every day except the Sabbath; on the eve of that day, twice as much fell. The children of Israel ate manna for forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate manna until they reached the borders of the land of Canaan. The story is repeated in the Koran in Sura al-Baqara : « We sent down the clouds for your shade: we sent you manna and quails, and said, ‘Feed on the good things we give you’ ». 

The Body of Christ is a concept in Christian theology, linked to redemption, eternal life, sharing, brotherhood and the transmission of the divine word. At the Catholic Mass, the priest says during the Eucharistic prayer: « When he was ready to be handed over and to enter freely into his passion, he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying : ‘Take and eat of it, all of you: this is my body which is given up for you’ ». 

This reminder of the Last Supper, the meal before the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, is the symbol of the flesh given by the Messiah to save humanity from its sins. Just a little later in the service, the priest says, « Remembering the death and resurrection of your Son, we offer you, Lord, the bread of life. More than forgiveness, the bread, as the officiant says, is the bread of life, the symbol of the resurrection brought to humanity by Jesus.

The Body of Christ is the Messiah’s gift of forgiveness of sins, the new word given that underlies the resurrection and, above all, the bread of life through this Christ-like word that is meant to bring charity and brotherhood  oses led the people out of slavery; Jesus, through the gift of his body and his sacrifice, seeks to establish the cardinal and theological virtues. The Bread of Life Community was a new community of the Roman Catholic Church, founded in 1976 by Pascal and Marie-Annick Pingault and dissolved by Bishop Jean-Claude Boulanger on 9 April 2015.

# For the Doctor of the Church John Chrysostom, Jesus, in this miracle, posed as the creator of heaven and earth. With this gesture, he also encouraged people to pray before eating, and he wanted to show the importance of sharing. More modern theologians say that the multiplication of the loaves is a symbol of the Word given by Christ, a word that has nourished people for centuries. For Saint Ephrem, Jesus gave generously without counting the cost during this miracle. He gave so much that twelve baskets remained.

Saint Ephrem also compared Jesus to Moses, who fed the people freed from slavery with the manna that fell from heaven. For Benedict XVI, this gesture was a symbol of fraternal sharing, but also a symbol of the path that the apostles followed: passing on the Good News. Benedict XVI emphasised that this multiplication was the beginning of the Eucharist, which continues to this day. According to some theological interpretations, it prefigured the Last Supper, Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, establishing the rite of the Eucharist in which the bread is said to embody the body of Jesus, given as a sacrifice on the cross to save mankind.

From the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to John

At that time the Jews were complaining against Jesus because he had said : « I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, « Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph ? We know his father and mother well. So how can he now say : ‘I came down from heaven’? » The bread that I will give is my flesh, given for the life of the world. The bread I will give is my flesh, given for the life of the world ». (Jn 6, 41-51)

The Living Bread from Heaven

 Did he mean that there were emissaries of the Sanhedrin in the Capernaum synagogue where Jesus was speaking? This is what John called those Galileans whose murmuring betrayed their opposition to Jesus. What scandalised them was that Jesus presented himself to them as the bread that had come down from heaven. In their ignorance, they saw a contradiction between this statement and the knowledge they had of Jesus’ family.

They murmured among themselves, without openly expressing their opposition to the words they had just heard. Jesus did not answer the objection of his listeners by revealing to them the mystery of his supernatural birth: for the miraculous origin of Jesus could only be accepted by a heart that already believed. These scruples were not the cause of their unbelief; it was their unbelief that gave rise to these scruples. He insisted on the necessity of a work of divine grace which had to be accomplished in every man who wanted to come to him and believe in him.

No one can do it any other way. T his work, which he described in these words : « All that the Father gives me will come to me », he characterised as a drawing of the Father to Jesus. God gives him souls by drawing them to himself. God has, in his powerful hand, a thousand ways of exercising this action of his mercy on souls. Sometimes it is the painful experiences of life, suffering, the thought of death, that make them feel sadly the need for a comforter, a Saviour; sometimes it is the bitter feeling of sin that awakens in them and inspires them with this cry of anguish : « What shall I do to be saved ? »

And as soon as Jesus appeared, they recognised him as the One they had been longing for. But God’s great means of attracting people to Jesus is his Word and his Spirit, who are constantly at work in our humanity and who seize the most favourable moments to accomplish his work. Experience alone, that great reconciler of contrasts, can teach us in this respect ; it teaches the humble to say with a reformer : « We will, because it is given to us to will ». « It is God who works in you the will and the execution, according to his good pleasure, despite the apparent contradiction: « Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling » (Phil 2, 2-13). 

Be that as it may, as soon as a poor sinner has been drawn to Jesus in this way, who takes it upon himself to complete the divine work in him to the end : « And I will raise him up on the last day. » Jesus said with joyful certainty : « Everyone who has heard the Father and has been taught in this way comes to him and finds in him his Saviour. » The teaching that men have received from God is only preparatory, intended to bring them to the Son, who alone has seen the Father from all eternity, for he comes from God. « It is therefore in him, who is the image of God, the splendour of his glory, that believers see God » (Jn 1, 14).

Jesus said : « I am the bread of life. After this profound instruction, provoked by the murmurs of the Jews, Jesus returned to his teaching on eternal life, which he communicated to believers by giving himself to them as the bread of life. » Jesus sent back to the Jews their objection : « The manna that fed their fathers in the desert did not prevent them from dying. » But there is another bread that frees from death, the bread that came down from heaven and gives eternal life.

Jesus summed up everything he had just said by saying: « I am this living bread » and therefore life-giving, since it gives eternal life to those who appropriate it through faith and living communion with him. « The bread of life and the living bread, the one who is divine life realised in a human person. who comes down from heaven in general and who came down from heaven in a historical and concrete sense, in the person of Christ; the negative expression: do not die, and the great positive affirmation: will live forever » (Meyer)

With these words, Jesus presented his thought in a new light and moved on to the last part of his discourse. In the previous part, he had spoken several times of the bread of life, of a bread that came down from heaven and gives eternal life to those who eat it; he declared that this life-giving bread is himself, and that the way to live by it is to believe in him. « Giving his flesh and blood » cannot mean anything other than his death, and a violent death at that, in which his blood was shed. Indeed, flesh and blood are living human nature; to give them is to give oneself up to death; to give them of this world, which is in death, is to redeem and save it.

The way for us to appropriate the fruits of Jesus’ death is to enter with him, through faith, into an intimate and personal communion. This is what Jesus expressed in his words : « Eat his flesh and drink his blood ». This has been the interpretation of most exegetes. Another is to see in this whole passage, not the death of Jesus in particular, but his person and his life in general, which he offers to those who believe in him, as the source of their spiritual life.

Deacon Michel Houyoux

Links to other Christian websites

◊ Moravian Church in America : click here to read the paper →“I am the living bread that came down from heaven .

◊ Curchg of Jesus Christ : click here to read the paper → The Living Bread Which Came Down from Heaven

 Video I am the living Bread : click here → https://youtu.be/Bmph-9NhVt4