As we delve deeper into the long Eucharistic discourse of John’s Gospel and going beyond the previous Sunday’s theme of God’s generosity, we are invited not only to savour God’s benevolence but also to purify our search as the hunger intensifies.
Thus, it is an invitation into a deeper life of the Eucharist. Just like last Sunday, St Paul in the 2nd Reading invited the Ephesians to put on the new self, to be formed in the goodness and holiness of truth. The old self when clouded by spiritual blindness is debilitated. Imagine the Israelites in their short-sightedness had preferred slavery to freedom. They were willing to settle for something less.
In their desert of desperation, it became a classic case of “better the devil they had known than the devil they did not know”. It appeared that at their back, they smelled food never mind that there they were oppressed. In front of them, they had no inkling of what was to come. Suddenly the back seemed more compelling. In this area perhaps St Ignatius of Loyola has a great wisdom for us. He asked that we remember and treasure the heights of consolation so that we can weather our storms of desolation. In other words, remember the highs because they can carry through the valley of darkness.
Like the Israelites, the crowd in today’s Gospel seemed lost in that valley as they were fixated with getting having more of the gifts rather than to acknowledge the Giver. They only desired more of the same but Jesus challenged them to peer beyond the immediate need for physical nourishment and be concerned with their spiritual well-being. But they could not for even after their witnessing a stupendous miracle, they still insisted that Jesus prove His divinity. Talk about blindness and gaucheness.
There was a certain malaise that powered their gaucheness or spiritual blindness. Before we patronise them, we are not immune either. They were dying for bread whereas we are focused immediate gratification. For the Israelite, it was basically a physical need. For us, our blindness is emotional. We are a therapeutic society obsessed with how we are feeling.
Emotionalism is a scourge we pay scant attention to. We have come to associate our well-being in rather sensible terms. Just to illustrate, are these two options interchangeable? Being good and feeling good. Clearly they are not. But our idea of “good” seems more associated with how we are feeling rather than how we are. Thus, we are driven to chase the good feeling rather than focus on the attempts at being good. The former is just an emotion or a mood. The latter is moral.
Recently we celebrated St Mary Magdalene on 22nd July. Did you know that there is a chaplet named after her? After reading the prayers, one realises that each prayer of the bead is associated with cultivating the awareness of one’s sinfulness and growing in spiritual freedom. The connexion between the awareness of sinfulness and contrition for one’s sins is important because without this awareness and the corresponding contrition for sins, the Eucharist does not really make sense.
Sinners need the Eucharist because it is the spiritual food that leads to eternal life. But if one does not acknowledge his or her sinfulness and the essential need for forgiveness, then Holy Communion is no more than a health supplement. Just to give an example of a health supplement, think of a massage therapy. Do we need massages? No, we do not. Do they make us feel good? Yes, they do. They may be good for our general well-being but they are not essential for our salvation.
In today’s Gospel, Christ challenges us to go beyond settling for mundane mediocrity. Just being full is not enough. Life should be more than getting our fixes because physical hunger must always lead us to spiritual hunger. Jesus told the crowd to believe in Him. They clearly could not even though He announced to them that He is the Bread of Life and this brings us to the 2nd Reading.
It begs the question of how we can be the new Christ if we do not nourish our spirit. The Eucharist is the true food of the soul. We prepare ourselves to receive Him and the best preparation is to know Whom we are receiving and knowing that there must also be a corresponding preparation which consists of the examination of conscience and going for confession on a regular basis. It is like cleaning the house in order to welcome not just any guest but The Guest.
This is indeed an invitation for all of us who regularly consume the Bread of Life to become more Christ-like in our behaviour. As we hunger and are fed by Christ present in the Eucharist, we must also feed others who are hungry and are searching for meaning in life. We can show others that the ultimate goal of life is not the fulfilment of our physical wants and needs. It is not even psychological or emotional equilibrium. The challenge is to become the bread broken for others; the candle burnt out to give light to others. As a thanksgiving, the Eucharist is never intended for a selfish existence but serves as inspiration for others to look for the true God: Jesus Christ, the Bread of eternal life. It is a supreme honour for us who receive Holy Communion and at the same time a profound responsibility too. Today’s Gospel reminds us of St Augustine’s advice: “Christian! Become what you eat”.
