Flesh for the Life of the World
August 12, 2012
Nineteenth Sunday
in Ordinary Time 2012 B
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
After [Elijah] ate and
drank, he lay down again, but the angel of the LORD came back a second time, touched
him, and ordered, "Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for
you!" He got up, ate, and drank; then
strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain
of God, Horeb. 2 Kings 19:7-8
So be imitators of God,
as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself
over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma. Ephesians 5:1-2
"I am the bread of
life. Your ancestors ate the manna in
the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so
that one may eat it and not die. 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." John 6:48-51
Piety
Accepting Jesus as
the bread that came down from heaven is the rock bottom of our piety. Jesus is the eternal word of God’s love for
us. Love is the gift of one’s life to
another. Jesus loves us to such an
extent that he holds back nothing of himself.
He gives us his body and his blood.
He promises us that if we accept him, he will speak for us to the Father. He gives us his life to such an extent that
the Father sees his Son in us. The
Ancestors of the Jews ate the manna in the desert and they died. If we accept the gift of the life of Jesus we
will never die. We will live forever in
the love he has for us. Jesus has given
us his flesh for the life of the world.
Study
We accept the
challenge of Paul in Ephesians not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and
reviling we get rid of with all our love.
Malice can have no place in our dealings with others. We must be compassionate and forgiving of one
another even as Christ is forgiving of us.
We study how best to imitate Christ.
Christ loved us and handed himself over as a sacrifice for us to the
Father. Christ’s love on the cross is the human
expression of the fullness of God’s love for us. So we must offer our lives for one another. Christ shows us how to give of ourselves. All that he is he has received from the
Father. He gives all of himself to us
even as the Father has given to Christ all that he is. Christ is the Word of love of the Father for
all of us. Christ loves us even as the
Father has loved him. He challenges us
to love one another even as he has loved us.
He shares all that the Father has given him with us. He asks us to learn how to share ourselves
for the sake of our neighbors.
Action
It is the Father
who draws us to Christ. We must embrace
what Christ says to us with all our hearts.
There is and can be no doubt in our hearts that Christ has come down
from heaven. Even as God has created us
out of nothing in the creation of our world, He creates new life in Mary and
Mary becomes the mother of Christ and the Mother of God in the same moment. Jesus is one person with two natures Mary as
the mother of the human nature of Christ becomes mother of each and every one
of us since we are created to the image and likeness of God in Christ. How we respond to Eucharist is the challenge
to our piety. To make up our minds to go
to frequent communion is the beginning of new life. Christ takes us into himself even as we take
him into ourselves. We grow n Christ’s
life within us each time we communicate.
Christ becomes our real life. We
become his life in our world today. Eucharist
makes us into the hands and the feet of Christ.
The Sacraments are the human continuation of Christ on earth in each of
us. We live our destiny when we share
Christ with each other. Sharing Christ
makes us Eucharist to our world.
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