What are you really hungry for? What do you thirst
for?
St. Ignatius of Loyola can invite us to join him to
reflect on our heart’s deep desire, asking such questions as the above, in
discerning God’s desire for us, through his Spiritual Exercises. Then, we let
the Holy Spirit guide us to our clear awareness of our true desire deep not
only deep in our heart but in God’s heart.
Starting last Sunday’s (18th Sunday in
Ordinary Time, Cycle B) Gospel Reading (John 6:24-35), we continue to read from
Jesus’ Living Bread of Life discourse (John 6:26-58) and its reception in
public (John 6:60-71): this Sunday (19th Sunday): John 6:41-51, 20th
Sunday: John 6:51-58, 21st Sunday: John 6:60-69, to discern our deep
desire in God and God’s desire for us and see how these can match.
Through his Living Bread of Life discourse and
conversations with the crowd following the discourse, Jesus progressively
reveals his desire for us in speaking of the Living Bread of Life as himself
and its benefits for eternal life. However, not everyone who listened to Jesus
responded with gratefulness. In fact, many rejected the Living Bread of Life
that is Jesus himself, though they kept chasing him to fill their stomachs,
upon being miraculously fed out of five loaves and two fish (John 6:1-15).
As we continue read and reflect on the Living Bread
of Life and its benefits until 21st Sunday, we are to realize our
deep desires cannot be truly satisfied with what the world can offer but can be
fulfilled only by what God offers, namely, the Living Bread of Life, which is
actually Jesus himself. This is reflected in Jesus’ words in the Gospel Reading
for 18th Sunday (John 6:24-35), as Jesus taught us to seek food that endures
for eternal life given only by him (John 6:27). And this truth is reiterated in
these words of self-revelation:
I
am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever
believes in me will never thirst (John 6:35).
In other words, Jesus expounded what he meant by the
food that endures for eternal life only given by him (John 6:27) as the Bread
of Life for those who come to him to be free from a cycle of hunger and thirst in
his “I AM” self-revelation statement (John 6:35). He made it clear that the
food for eternal life only given by him is Jesus himself, who is the Bread of
Life to liberate those who come to him and believe in him from a cycle of
hunger and thirst.
Jesus continued on with his Bread of Life discourse.
Jesus explained why he, as the Bread of Life, can
fee those who seek him and believe in him from hunger and thirst. And it is
because he was sent from heaven by the Father, with everything given by Him, to
do His will (John 6:37-38). This is to explicate what he said about the bread of
God sent from heaven that gives life (John 6:32-33) in reference to manna that
the crowd mentioned (John 6:31).
Revealing that Jesus himself is the Bread of Life
that endures for eternal life, therefore, freeing from hunger and thirst, is
sent from heaven, he explained that it was for the Father’s will to save and
raise those who believe (John 6:39-40).
So, this is the pretext to the Gospel Reading for 19th
Sunday (John 6:41-51).
The Gospel Reading first tells how the crowd reacted
to the first segment of Jesus’ discourse on the Bread of Life (John 6:26-40),
and they were murmuring about Jesus because it made no sense to them that the
son of Joseph could be the bread from heaven (John 6:41-42).
Then, Jesus basically said: Shut up! and Listen to
me! (John 6:43).
And he continued on with the discourse with these
words:
No
one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him
on the last day (John 6:44).
Jesus shifted a focus on the Father, who is the
sender of the bread for eternal life, Jesus. He explained that it is the Father who draws people
to His Son, the Bread of Life for eternal life.
In reference to Isaiah 54:13, Jesus elaborated on what
he meant by the Father to draw believers to him for the Bread of Life:
They
shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from Him
comes to me (John 6:45).
Here, Jesus wanted the crowd to understand that it
is the Father’s desire for us to be drawn to His Son, Jesus the Bread of Life
for eternal life and to be raised on the last day, as our learning from God.
And this is how we are to be as His Law being written in our hearts (Jeremiah
31:33).
And Jesus further spoke on the Father as seen by no
one but him (John 6:46), and this statement is theologically important as it
implicates Jesus’ relation to the Father. This is also the relation of the
Bread of Life with the one who sends, the Father.
The Father is seen by nobody but the Bread of Life,
Jesus, because of his unique relationship with Him, who sends him, the Bread of
Life, from heaven for us to have eternal life and to be raised on the last day.
Then, Jesus made it clear how important belief is to
be benefited from the Bread of Life for eternal life (John 6:47), because he
knew that the crowd did not believe him though they had seen him (John 6:36).
One important teaching from the Gospel Reading for
19th Sunday (John 6:41-51) is that our belief in Jesus is an
absolutely necessary condition for us to receive Jesus the Bread of Life and to
be benefited from this bread for eternal life.
So, Jesus once again reaffirmed himself as the Bread
of Life (John 6:48; cf. 6:35).
Then, Jesus further expounded what the Bread of Life
(John 6:35, 48) is, in contrast to manna from heaven given by the Father through
Moses (John 6:49-50), saying:
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 6:51).
Jesus has revealed further of himself from being the
Bread of Life to the Living Bread of Life. This bread from heaven sent by the
Father to give believers eternal life is the life itself, because it is the
living bread. In fact, Jesus himself is the life, as well as, the way and the
truth (John 14:6).
In his response to the disbelieving crowd who regarded him as a nice person to feed them with bread, Jesus made it clear about resurrection for those who believe in him (John 6:40) and connected the resurrection of the believers to eternal life through the Living Bread of Life (John 6:51). This is also echoed in Jesus’ statement to Martha, who believed:
I
am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will
live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die
(John 11:25-26).
One important lesson from the Gospel Reading for 19th
Sunday (John 6:41-51) is that our belief in Jesus is an absolutely necessary
condition to enjoy the full merit of the Living Bread of Life for eternal life,
being raised on the last day, being free from a cycle of thirst and hunger.
Jesus knew about the disbelief of the crowd (John
6:36), and this disbelief of the crowd was related to their familiarity of
Jesus as the son of Joseph, resulting in murmuring about him and his heavenly
self-identification (John 6:41-42).
This is a problem of what is known in social
psychology as “cognitive bias”. Our human mind has a disposition to box objects
perceived by our senses to cognitively process in the brain. And these boxes
are reflected on cognitive biases. So, the crowd’s cognitive bias boxed Jesus
as the son of Joseph, preventing them from seeing him more than the son of
Joseph. The bias restricted their abilities to see Jesus to mere human, the son
of Joseph, whom they knew. And this kept them to remain as disbelievers,
disqualifying them to be entitled to the Living Bread of Life.
So they just murmured about Jesus.
In light the Second Reading (Ephesians 4:30-5:2),
the disbelieving crowd’s murmuring about Jesus is an example of “grieving the
Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 4:30), and disbelief can become malicious, just as bitterness,
fury, anger, shouting, and reviling. This is what we can see how Jesus’ act of
healing a paralytic man on Sabbath was perceived by those who with disbelief
and how this resulted in the progressive malice eventually leading to intense
hatred toward him, having him killed (John 5:1-19:30).
And we will see how the crowd’s stubborn disbelief
affected the way they reacted to the portion of Jesus’ discourse on the Living
Bread of Life in this Sunday’s Gospel Reading (John 6:41-51) in the Gospel
Reading for the next Sunday (John 6:51-58) and the Sunday after next Sunday
(John 6:60-69). We will see how the crowd’s cognitive bias that boxed Jesus as
the son of Joseph also prevents them from seeing the Living Bread of Life as
the flesh of Jesus.
Let us not allow our cognitive bias become an
obstacle to our belief in Jesus as the Living Bread of Life, whose flesh we are
to eat for our resurrection and eternal life.
And this heavenly Living Bread of Life can restore
our strengths when it is weaken, as the food that God gave Elijah did to him (1
Kings 19:4-8) but not just for 40 days but all the way to eternal life because
it is the true food that endures for eternal life (cf. John 6:27). So, we shall
seek this Living Bread of Life daily, as we say in our prayer to the Father:
Give us this day, our daily bread (Matthew 6:11), as taught by him during his
Sermon on the Mount.
This, our daily bread from heaven, the Living Bread of Life, is not our stomach's desire but our heart’s deep desire to be free from hunger and thirst, also in God’s desire for us as it is in His will.
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