May 07, 2014 Wednesday
3rd Week of Easter
1st Reading: Acts 8:1b–8
Gospel: Jn 6:35–40
Jesus said to the crowd, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall never be hungry, and whoever believes in me shall never be thirsty. Nevertheless, as I said, you refuse to believe, even when you have seen. Yet, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I shall not turn away. For I have come from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the One who sent me.
“And the will of him who sent me is that I lose nothing of what he has given me, but instead that I raise it up on the last day. This is the will of the Father, that whoever sees the Son and believes in him shall live with eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
On the importance of food Owen Meredith wrote: “We may live without poetry, music and art, we may live without conscience and heart; we may live without books; but civilized men cannot live without cooks.” (Meredith, “Lucile”). Though created for a loftier destiny, man must still work for food to eat each day. Was it necessary that Jesus should become bread? Perhaps he also believed in the saying that the shortest way to the heart is through a person’s tummy.
Notice that while he identified himself as bread (“I am the Bread of Life”), he merely described himself as giver of water when he said: “Anyone who drinks the water I shall give will never be thirsty again” (John 4:14).
I don’t know why Jesus chose to be bread and not water when one can survive longer with water than with bread. Probably it is for the destruction involved in the making of bread that he chose to be identified as bread. From the pounding that the wheat must take after harvest to the beating that the dough must endure from the perspiring hands of the baker, from its subjection to intense heat inside the oven to the chewing of the bread in the mouth of voracious bread lovers, the making of bread is a process of ruthless destruction. The identification is perfect, for Jesus did not just die an abrupt death but underwent excruciating pain as he was subjected to all known forms of torture.
Knowing how temporal existence of human beings is tied to food Jesus knew that we understand him better by that language. He did not merely use it as language but became that language when he descended to the level of food as he became bread for us at our Eucharistic tables. As we partake of this Bread in the Eucharistic celebration, let us be filled with gratitude for the love with which he suffered for us. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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