It should come as no surprise to any who read last week's post that this week's Gospel (St. Jn. 6.24-35) at Mass is Jesus' statement that He is the Bread of Life, and its implications.
"We get it," you say, "we didn't forget in a week's time." Well and good, but how does that show forth in us when we partake in HIm at Mass?
If we turn to the Epistle reading for today (Eph. 4.1-16), St. Paul is begging the Ephesians (well, he is begging us) to stop being twits and act like what a normal Christian should be (note I said "normal" and "should" together...that does not mean that today's "normal" Christians "are" anything like this...but we "should" be).
St. Paul is stressing virtues like humility, patience, gentleness, tolerance (*ahem* that's what "bearing with each other" means), and love. He begs us to maintain our unity. He means us to use our gifts to build up the Church.
Well, the last two thousand years have been an unmitigated freak show, haven't they?
Christians have been noted for splintering over the least little bit. Rome is fracturing right now over its social justice and right to life issues, particularly in the wake of abuse scandals. The edifice of the Eastern Church is a box of matchsticks over things as momentous as relationships with other groups to trivialities such as the Gregorian calendar (if you want to see a spectacular meltdown, please do go into a Julian Calendar parish and mention it in passing). ENGLISH Christianity (which includes a huge portion of American mainline and fundamentalist denominations) looks like someone took a carton of birdshot and broke it open on an ice rink. Some of it is over major issues such as the nature of Christ, some of it over true trivialities, but the unifying factor is that we approached these differences in anything BUT a spirit of humility, patience, gentleness, tolerance, and anything even remotely resembling love.
Where, in this sorry mess, is anything even remotely resembling the Bread of Life come down from Heaven for our salvation?
God is nothing if not resourceful, seeing as He is the Creator of all. He has a long history of dealing with horribly imperfect individuals (see today's Old Testament reading (2 Sam. 11.26-12.13a) where His favourite person, King David of Israel, concocts murder-by-combat to cover up an illicit affair, something God went on record as not being happy with!). He still uses those imperfect individuals to build our salvation. God did end up forgiving David, and He will forgive us, but not without some degree of reckoning on our part. God forgives us, but we still owe it to Him to get past our pettiness and learn humility, patience, gentleness, forbearance, love. As we partake in the Body of the Bread of Life, if we are serious, we should also be striving to take on HIs characteristics, His nature. As we partake in the Body of the Bread of Life, He gives us gifts to enable us to do these very things.
Let us not eat in vain, brothers and sisters. Let us eat in unity of spirit and with faith and love draw near.
