August 23, 2015
Sunday, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b 2nd Reading: Eph 5:21-32 Gospel: Jn 6:60-69
After hearing his doctrine, many of Jesus’ followers said, “This language is very hard! Who can accept it?”
Jesus was aware that his disciples were murmuring about this and so he said to them, “Does this offend you? Then how will you react when you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh cannot help. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. But among you there are some who do not believe.”
From the beginning, Jesus knew who would betray him. So he added, “As I have told you, no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
After this many disciples withdrew and no longer followed him. Jesus asked the Twelve, “Will you also go away?” Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We now believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
As the topic on the Bread of Life is so broad, let us be guided by the five letters in the word BREAD: Broken, Real presence, Eternally life-giving, Accepted, and demanding Death to self. Jesus as bread of life reminds us of the Passion that literally broke his flesh. Central to the concept of the bread of life is the Catholic teaching on Real Presence. The bread once consecrated at Mass becomes the Body of Jesus and the wine, his Blood in a mysterious process called trans-substantiation. The term means that in the process of turning bread into Christ’s flesh, bread undergoes substantial change to become the body of Christ. Jesus distinguished this bread as eternally life-giving. Unlike the ancestors of the Jews fed with bread at the desert, those who eat this Bread will live forever (Jn 6:58).
Only those who freely accept this bread will enjoy eternal life. Christ has already won us back from the clutches of evil. But we have to do good works to manifest our willingness to accept this gift of eternal life. Our willingness to receive the Body of Jesus at Mass should be substantiated by good works. If each time we attend Mass we come with nothing, the communions we take in those Masses won’t do good to our souls.
Accepting this Bread of Life demands dying to self so that it will no longer be us who live but Christ living in us. By then we’d become BREAD to others: Broken, Really present to their needs, Eagerly life-giving, Altruistic, and Dead to ourselves so that Christ may live in us. —Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM., MAPM., Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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