In the Gospel for this coming Sunday, Jesus proclaims to the people, “I am the bread of life.” (John 6: 24-35).
Pope St. Leo the Great affirms that, by partaking of the body and blood of Christ, we are changed into what we receive. He writes, “For the effect of our sharing in the body and blood of Christ is to change us into what we receive.” This means that through our reception of the Eucharist we become Jesus for our world today, its “bread of life.”
St. Francis de Sales then urges us to “be who we are and be that well.”
Together, these words from Jesus and two great saints are both an invitation and a challenge to us Christians --as the Body of Christ and, individually, as “another Christ”-- to be the bread that nourishes both the body and the spirit of today’s world, a world that hungers for God and thirsts for justice. How do we, the People of the Bread, feed that hunger and quench that thirst?
The example of Jesus is the answer. He was tireless in preaching the Father’s Kingdom in both word and deed. As St. John so perceptively saw, Jesus himself is both God’s Word to us as well as God’s Deed for us. If we want to know how much God loves us, we only need to see who God has sent to us and what, in Jesus, God has done for us.
Jesus preached the beatitudes and lived their spirit. He forgave the sinner, gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. He preached the Good News to the poor, befriended the outcast, looked after the widow and orphan, and invited sinners to his table. In all this, he proclaimed God’s Kingdom, not as near, but as already present –in him, in his word, and in his deeds.
We who are nourished on the Bread of Life are gradually changed, recreated, transformed into that which we receive. For that reason, as Venerable Mother Mary de Sales Chappuis was fond of saying, in us Jesus is seen once again walking upon the earth!
Jesus spoke to the spiritual, material, and societal needs of his day. We, as his Body today, must speak to those same needs as manifested in our world today. Jesus suffered and died for speaking truth to power and confronting head-on the evils of his day. So must we.
The Father never left the Son, even in his sufferings and dying. Nor will the Father ever leave us. The Holy Spirit transformed the frightened and discouraged first disciples of Jesus into the heroes of the early Church. Ordinary men and women, nourished on Word and Sacrament, went out in power to all corners of the earth, preaching the Good News of Jesus and continuing his saving work of peace, justice, healing, and love. We are called to do the same today.
For that reason, let us be who we truly are—and be that perfectly well!
Rev. Lewis S. Fiorelli, OSFS
Provincial, Wilmington-Philadelphia Province
