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20 th Sunday in Ordinary Time
If you want to believe that Jesus is a crazy person just listen to Him today. We are so accustomed to hearing this message that we don’t hear the “rawness” of it anymore. Have a listen to this: “I am the living bread come down from Heaven. 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. My flesh is real food. My blood is true drink.” Please!!! Who says stuff like that? This sounds like cannibalism. I listen to irate comedians performing. They tell us that they have no time for God and for God people. They hear this stuff and would you blame them for sneering. The key to understanding is to learn spiritual language. Learn what spiritual meaning is. We know that He is not talking about cannibalism. He is talking about the mystery of who He is, the Messiah and all He teaches. He invites us to imbibe into ourselves the whole meaning of His words. We are starving for someone or something to feed our incessant hunger. We have tried everything. How many laptops do we need to buy to be satisfied? How many cars are enough? How many more things do I need to buy so that I can conclude, “Now, I have bought everything I will ever need. I am satisfied.” We have a hungry heart. It never stops. Jesus comes along and He invites us to consider Him as the remedy for all our ills. The buck stops here. The shopping ends today. How about we eat real food for a change? We are not talking about food the way we talk about food. We are talking about the whole mystery of Jesus and how He satisfies us. Paul had his hands full trying to invite the Gentile Ephesian Christians to integrate into the wider Christian community. Yes, they were rejected. Yes, they were treated like second class citizens. Yes, there should be a war about that. But how about we stop with the bickering and injustice? How about we put down our arms and begin to join together, even though they treated us badly. How about that? Let that which joins us together to be united be the Lord Jesus. Let us turn to the Lord for the (spiritual) food which actually satisfies. Can we raise our minds and hearts to God? Can we learn to live by Godly ways? Can we persuade those cynical comedians to give us a break? We are always striving to understand. We are lifting up our hearts to Heaven. You choose to stay in the miry clay. You have given up and you make fun of us for trying. No thank you.
With love, Fr. Pat