Today we continue with our meditation on the Eucharist as presented to us in the Gospel of John. As a preamble we are given an extract from the Book of Exodus which tells us about the Manna that God gave to the People of Israel to sustain them on their journey through the desert of Sinai. From the perspective of today we can easily see how this Manna given in the desert is a foreshadowing of the bread of the Eucharist. The people were starving and starting to regret that they had come on this long journey through the desert. They complained to Moses who told them that God would send them quails in the evening and manna in the morning and that this would prove that he was the Lord. This food from heaven proves to be a great blessing for the People of Israel and it sustains them on their forty-year long journey through the Sinai Desert.
In the Gospel reading Jesus has withdrawn from the people whom he had fed with the five loaves and two fish. But they encounter him again at Capernaum and wonder how he got there. Jesus then tells them that they are looking for him not so much because they believe in him but because he had satisfied their hunger. Perhaps a little confused by these words the people ask Jesus how they might believe and follow God’s will. But then they fall into an old trap and start justifying themselves and begin to tell the old story of the manna their fathers ate in the desert, as if this was something of their own doing. They then get bolder and start to challenge Jesus asking him for a sign as if the great miracle he had performed the previous day was of no significance. The people having been the recipients of the miraculous distribution of the loaves and the fishes now seem to want Jesus to repeat this miracle perhaps thinking that they might never have to work for food again.
But Jesus helps them to understand that this was not the purpose of his miracle; he tells them that he was not there to provide them merely with bodily food but rather with spiritual food, food from heaven as he says. It is this spiritual food that is far more important than any earthly nourishment because it feeds and sustains the soul, the spiritual side of man. This spiritual food sustains man on his pilgrimage through this world and ultimately leads him to eternal life in the next world. Jesus then tells them something even more astounding, that it is actually he who is the Bread of Life; he challenges them to believe in him thus paving the way for the far greater miracle of the Eucharist that he was going to celebrate a year later on the night before he died. Actually when we look even more carefully at this passage we begin to discern that there are two groups of people present. First there are the ordinary people, the ones who follow Jesus around and who hang on his words.
They perceive Jesus to be a wonderworker and perhaps even the Messiah, but ultimately they are not quite sure what to make of him and so they follow him around seeing what he will do next. Essentially these ordinary people are passive and tend to wait to see how things will develop. They refrain from passing judgement on Jesus and instead they welcome his teaching and are in awe of his miracles. Then there is another more vociferous group who are presumably the leaders of the people. These ones are more interested in tripping Jesus up and in justifying their own position. They are much trickier to deal with and do not seem to believe in Jesus or in the efficacy of his miracles. We see these two groups in society today.
One group who are quiet and who wait and watch to see what happens, and then another group who criticize and want only to justify themselves. The first group represents the vast mass of the people. Ordinarily they don’t think much about spiritual things and need to be jogged out of their complacency from time to time. They are a quite good bunch on the whole although not switched on to the spiritual life; but a miracle or an extraordinary preacher can get their attention and persuade them to be more open to the spiritual world. Then there is the other group. These are the critics, the militant atheists, the ones who are always looking to put down the things of God. They have no time for religion but instead of being satisfied with letting it die out, as according to them it must, they feel the need to do everything they can to stamp out all signs of faith and belief in God.
There are plenty of this sort of people in the media and in society at large, and it is noticeable that they are increasing in number. I don’t think that we should waste our time with this lot; as with the Pharisees in the time of Jesus they won’t listen to us and their chief concern is to obliterate all signs of true religion. The first group, however, are much easier to deal with. Essentially they are open to the message of Christ if only someone will draw it to their attention. It is with this group that we will be able to make the most progress. They are open to talking about God but they won’t raise the topic themselves.
Pope Francis is telling us that we need to be better Evangelists. What he means is that we should engage with this group of people, we should be unafraid to talk to them about God and matters spiritual. If we do this in a respectful and gentle way we might be surprised that the positive reception we get. Jesus says at the end of today’s text, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst.? This is the very message that these people want to hear. This is the message that should be on our lips as we seek to engage them in dialogue. They want to know that with Jesus they will never be spiritually hungry or thirsty again. They want to know that he is indeed the Bread of Life and that it is only through him that we will attain eternal life.