In his encyclical “Evangelii Nuntiandi,” (1975) St. Paul VI writes this: “Man, nowadays, is more willing to listen to witnesses than to teachers.”
So true in every age! Without doubt, what I can teach you has less impact on all of us and on our world than how we, as individuals and as a Community, bear witness to Christ and to his Gospel. Or, it can be said that the way the Holy Mass, which we attend changes us from within, determines how much we can change the world for the better. Words are cheap, actions are much more effective.
Practically from the time this gospel passage (John 6: 41-51) was written, what we do in here has been called liturgy, leitourgia in Greek, i.e. the work which God’s people do together.
Together means that we are not here as spectators of an unusual show but are called to act as full participants—or it all fizzles into “spiritual magic.” Referring to this call, inspired by God, St. Paul writes, I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1)
As with anything else, this joint work is initiated by God who meets us exactly in the concrete situation in which we happen to find ourselves. When Elijah was ready to die, overwhelmed by grief and failure, God’s angel ordered him to get up and eat.
God’s intervention is always twofold: there is his Word: 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!” (1 Kings 19:7)
And there is his Sacrament: He got up, ate and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb. (1 Kings 19:8)
Similarly, this gospel passage shows how God meets his people in their exhaustion and hunger in the desert. The feeding of five thousand men was the sign (miracle) pointing to Jesus as the true Bread from heaven that the Father gives to his people.
At every Holy Mass, fully aware of our real condition, the Father feeds us Jesus first as Word and, then Jesus in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. It is crucial that we not only understand but live by this truth: the Father’s life-giving intervention can always only be Jesus as Bread of life.
Jesus is Bread of life in every one of his words and in Holy Communion with his flesh. We must etch this truth in the back of our mind so that we can live it out. There would be no Mass, no Eucharist, no Holy Communion, no Blessed Sacrament if Jesus had not taught us so through his words of life!
It is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. (John 6:45)
Besides, how could we know what liturgy (joint work)we are called to do, how to unite ourselves to his sacrifice had he not, first, taught us how?
Of course, also his example of total self-giving is coming to us from Holy Scripture. Hence, if some show up for Mass after the Community has been fed at the Table of God’s Word, they should not approach the Table of the Sacrament; they should not receive the Lord in Holy Communion because they would not know how to do their share of the liturgy, the joint work. They would not know how to bear witness to Christ and to his Gospel by word and action.
In the 2nd reading (Ephesians4:30-5:2) the Lord uses St. Paul to teach us how to do our share of the joint work that gives glory and thanks to the Father. As fully becoming of us as God’s children, we ought to stay away from bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling, while removing all malice as well.
Then: 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)
There we have it: our work as individuals and as a Community! The flesh of Jesus Christ at the Table of the Sacrament gives us the necessary strength, after we have been taught by God, to offer ourselves as a sacrificial offering to him for his honor and glory and thanks.
But there is also another aspect of Jesus’ teaching about the Eucharist. Jesus is a most unique Gift from the Father to us as individuals and as a Community of faith. It is precisely in his uniqueness that Jesus becomes a wealth that is compelling us to action. Jesus is never meant to be solely for private consumption. If our joint work, our liturgy here in church is done properly, we feel an irresistible stirring within as the Lord wants us to share him and his Gospel with others.
Remember what Saint Paul VI wrote: “Man, nowadays, is more willing to listen to witnesses than to teachers.”
The Father is thanked, glorified, praised and honored by us to the extent that, after receiving Christ Jesus in Holy Communion, we go out and bear witness to him. And we bear witness to him by living according to his teachings and by sacrificing ourselves for others in a way consistent with the way Jesus sacrificed himself for us.
