EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY OF YEAR "B"

EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY OF YEAR "B"

Exod 16, 2-1; Eph 4, 17; John 6, 24-35

          Let me begin by telling you about the smart exchange that took place between George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of England. There was no love lost between them. One day George Bernard Shaw sent Churchill two complementary tickets to his play that was to premiere in London. On the covering note he wrote: “Herewith two free tickets for my play. One for yourself and the other for a friend, if you have any.” Not to be outdone, Churchill sent back the tickets, and on his covering note he wrote: “Too busy to attend the first day. Send me tickets for the next day’s performance, if any.”

          The point is that nobody likes to receive a gift that is thrown at him or her from a donor sitting on a mountain. People are quick to recognise when a gift is an expression of arrogance rather than of benevolence. A gift must make the giver present and on the same level as the receiver.

          Jean Vanier is the founder of “L'Arche”, the institution for mentally and physically handicapped people. One day a French lady offered him a TV for the inmates of one of his homes, explaining that she didn’t need it as it had a slight defect. Jean Vanier returned the gift, telling her, “Madame, the TV set may be defective; but the real kink is in your cranium if you think you can junk your TV on my children and call it a gift.”

          My dear friends, there’s a lot of garbage in space, left by space satellites, and some of it keeps falling back to earth. But our dear God has never flung celestial junk at us from his high heaven. He comes personally with every gift. In every gift he is personally present, as in the Eucharist; but because we are poor receivers he gives himself in small doses. That’s how any medicine works. A very concerned Jesus was on the spot when the five thousand were fed. Five thousand hungry people present quite a logistical problem and a vast catering challenge! Jesus takes what must have seemed an insignificant offering of five loaves and two fish, gives thanks (the original Eucharist) and distributes the bread and fish – and feeds the multitude.

          And yet Jesus wanted to show people that what makes human beings live is their inner motivation. He gave them bread to eat because his greatest desire was to make them understand the full extent of his great love, which was urging him to give himself entirely to them. No lover has expressed himself in his gift as perfectly as Jesus in his personal self-giving on the Cross and in the Eucharist. But the people saw only the external appearance because they lacked spiritual insight - another word for faith. Jesus told them that he would literally give himself for the human race: he was referring to his Passion. He also taught them about the Eucharist, where he was to give them his Body and Blood, a mystical eating of himself. Jesus disappointed those who had hoped that their material needs alone were to be provided. These people went away, so Jesus had just ruined his chances of popular success. Yet the crowds had wanted to make him king only the day before!

          The apostles themselves were shocked because they saw that Jesus was ruining his chances. Yet they continued to trust him. That is what made them integral: their trust in him.

          Integrity of heart means unifying one’s life round the quest for God. This is in contrast to duplicity, double dealing, double thinking, double speak. In today’s 2^nd. reading St. Paul exhorts the Christians of Ephesus to have an aim in life. Their former life was corrupt and deluded by desire and lust. Paul complains that too many Christians are straddling the fence between the new and old self, between loyalty to Adam and loyalty to Christ. He strongly reminds them of who they are, so that they will firmly leave behind what they used to be. Instead of telling people what they ought to do, he reminds his congregation who they are, confident that moral action will flow from moral identity. We need to remind ourselves of our dignity in Jesus Christ. Those who know who they are in Christ will, by God’s grace, live accordingly.

PRAYER:    Lord Jesus, I praise and thank you for the gift of your very self as Bread of Life by which you feed and satisfy my deepest yearning and every need. I beg pardon for the occasions of aimlessness in my life and for my duplicity. I beseech you to make me single-hearted in seeking you and seeking what is best for my vocation.