Jun 14 2020 Reflection
Sunday 14 June 2020
First Reading: DT 8:2-3, 14B-16A
Responsorial Psalm:
Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
PS 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20
Second Reading: 1 COR 10:16-17
Gospel Reading: JN 6:51-58
Today’s Note: Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ
Gospel Reading:
Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:
“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.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me
will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
Reflection:
My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. (John 6:55)
Have you ever had to go without food for an extended period of time? It wasn’t a pleasant experience, was it? The longer we go without nourishment, the weaker we become. It feels as if our life is slowly draining from us—and in one sense, it is.
Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel make it clear that his Body and Blood are just as vital to us as food and drink are. Without the nourishment of the Eucharist, God’s life in us can slowly start to drain away.
Here’s an extreme example of how life-giving the Eucharist is. In his book He Leadeth Me, Fr. Walter Ciszek described the risks he took each day to offer Mass at the Siberian labor camp where he was imprisoned: “I would go to any length, suffer any inconvenience, run any risk to make the bread of life available to these men.”
The men worked long hours in frigid temperatures. Yet at noon, Ciszek would celebrate Mass wherever he could say it undetected, whether in a storage shack or huddled in a building foundation. “Distractions caused by the fear of discovery . . . took nothing away from the effect that the tiny bit of bread and few drops of consecrated wine produced upon the soul,” he wrote.
These prisoners were just as dependent on Jesus’ Body and Blood to keep them alive as they were on the meager food they received from their captors. The Eucharist had become their true food and true drink.
Ciszek wrote that he was “occasionally overcome with emotion . . . as I thought of how [God] had found a way to follow and to feed these lost and straying sheep in this most desolate land.” Today, may we too be filled with gratitude as we reflect on the generosity of a God who offers his life—and his very self—to us in the Eucharist.
“Jesus, thank you for the life you give me in your Body and Blood.”
