“I am the true bread that has come down from Heaven.” ***I AM a True Believer in the Real Presence of Christ in Eucharist!! “I Love Eucharist!” Our readings today reflect the journey from reality to thoughtful contemplation of ‘Bread’ as both sustenance for the now and a vehicle into our spiritual future.
Our first reading from Deut. 8:2-3, 14-16, tells of Moses reminding or ‘Having’ to remind the Israelites of God’s great kindness and trustworthiness to care for His people. In the first of 3 paragraphs we hear, “Moses said to the people: ‘Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments. He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.”‘ Just as the ‘Word’ of God is both Jesus and the inspired written word, the bread of God is both our daily bread for refreshing our bodies and also daily, weekly, yearly bread that we need to refresh and push our spirituality ever closer to God Almighty Himself.!
Our next offering from St. Paul to Corinthians 10:16-17, “We are many parts”, IS THE, Plainest, clearest description of Eucharist. “Brothers and sisters: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? *Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” Subsequently, it could also be an argument ‘for truth’ in Eucharist. If Paul, a hard as flint persecutor of Christians, can come around to believe the truth about Eucharist, everyone alive should.! Or will you deny any of actual history.??
The ‘Bread of Life’ discourse is our Gospel this morning. John 6:51-58, “Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:
“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.” *The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” I must admit that this is one of the scriptures that causes me self-doubt. I Believe in Eucharist due to tremendous, centuries old teaching and personal experience! But to believe this, as it was being spoken to them, at that time, and then to be expected to put this into my brain to make sense and into my soul as treasure, purely on ‘Face-value’… YES, this is a hard saying. For myself, I pray that I would have had Peter’s courage when he said “To whom should we go? You have the words of everlasting life!” JOY- JOY- JOY… Thank you for your time. Mark Gates
