Solemnity of the Most Holy Body
and Blood of Christ
This crowd that Jesus is speaking to had made a pilgrimage to see him in person, instead of going to Jerusalem for the celebration of Passover. It would have been easier to go to the nearby city, but something was drawing them to the great teacher. And, walking was their mode of transportation, and the distances were often across rough terrain or long detours around lakes. Someone has calculated that in his 3-year public ministry Jesus walked 912 miles. (Now, I thought that was an interesting tidbit in case you play Catholic trivia.)
Here’s another. Someone has calculated that Mary, the mother of Jesus, walked 12,187 miles by the time she was 50 years old. The distance around the world at the equator is 24,901 miles. This means that in her lifetime Mary walked almost half the distance around world. (No wonder she waited until after her death to make so many miraculous appearances.)
Now, come with me back to Jesus and the crowd who wanted to take Jesus by force and make him their king. In other words, Jesus is speaking to a crowd that has felt the pangs of a deep, deep longing for something more than physical hunger. But as so often happens, they have misplaced the object of their yearning. They have placed their longing on “king.” Jesus wants them to see that their true longing is for “living bread.”.
Today, Jesus is asking us to defog our soul’s glasses in order to bring our longing into clearer focus. John wants us to see into and through Jesus, that our real longing is not for things that pass away but for things that endure for imperishable Light, and kinship (not kingship).
Jesus keeps referring to bread, living bread. We know that the majority of Jesus’ followers were the poor. And it is a known fact that 50% of a poor person’s diet was (and often is) some form of bread. Life was a struggle, not unlike the fate of many of the people we know. Each day’s food had to be earned that day; and was just enough for a day’s survival. This is not the bread that Jesus is talking about. He is talking about a Living Bread: an abiding, dynamic relationship with Him. “They who eat my flesh and drink my blood will abide in me, and I in them.”
In response to the people who quarreled over his words, Jesus doesn’t seem to answer the question posed about how salvation will come about, perhaps because this reality can only be understood after his death and Resurrection. They could not imagine a future supper with such significance, or the horrific suffering and death of the One they so admired, nor the resurrection that would startle the world. They did not yet know the gift of self in Bread and Wine. As one writer says it, they could not conceive of the Eucharistic presence that Jesus would give us so that He might continue to “mingle with us.” Isn’t that a touching phrase – mingle with us?!
The bottom line is that people are scrambling like crazy to find the diet that is right for them. But there is a diet you don’t hear much about – the one presented in today’s gospel – the “Bread of Life Diet.” It’s spiritually high-carb but offers full nutritional value. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” and promises that people on his program “will never hunger or thirst again!” This is an extravagant claim! But, unlike some TV ads that offer guaranteed fat burners, Jesus can deliver on what he promises!
We’ve heard the Good News … now it’s our task and obligation to share that news!
~Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB
