Saturday, April 16, 2016
3rd Week of Easter
1st Reading: Acts 9:31–42
Gospel: Jn 6:60–69
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
The disgust of the disciples over Jesus’ offer of his body and blood as food and drink is beyond imagining. I could only compare it to the disgust of a mother (in a hilarious anecdote) over what her little girl had cooked. The mother had told the little girl: “Magsaing ka, kasama na dyan ang aso’t pusa”. The child took the order literally and threw their tiny kitten into the cauldron. When taken to task for her stupidity the girl said: “Kasama pa nga dapat dyan ang aso, di lang magkasya”.
The disciples refused to take Jesus literally when he said, “unless you eat my body and drink my blood you will not have life within you.” But if Jesus did not mean to be literal, he could have clarified his language when the disciples began to leave. Instead Jesus asked those who remained: “Will you also go away?”
Today we have a better understanding of the profound mystery of the Eucharist. We do not argue anymore about Jesus’ real presence in the bread and wine we consecrate at every Mass. What we need to establish is how our belief in that presence is leading us to a better application of faith in the daily grind.
Man is what he eats, wrote Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach. Dog-eaters have been observed to manifest dog traits such as barking and scratching walls. Pork-eaters are sluggish like pigs. Feuerbach’s statement is better understood in the Eucharistic sense. We become what we eat in the Mass so that each time we partake of his Body and Blood we become bread broken and shared to our brothers and sisters.
The disgusting thing with Christianity is not that we are God-eating creatures but that after eating the flesh of God we do not become what we eat. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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