Occasionally, God has supplied physical bread “from heaven” — a bread that was the essential sustenance required in those moments. The readings for this Sunday recall multiple instances of this. Initially, we observe God providing for Elijah in the Old Testament passage from 1 Kings 19:4-8. The Gospel passage, John 6:41-51, references two distinct events where God delivers bread from heaven: the manna bestowed upon the Israelites during their escape from Egypt, and the bread that Christ multiplied to satisfy the “large crowd” by the shores of the Galilean sea.
It is Christ who informs us that these extraordinary gifts of physical sustenance are indicators of a more essential type of nourishment: “I am the bread of life. / Your forebears consumed the manna in the wilderness, yet they perished; / this is the bread that descends from heaven / so that one may partake of it and not perish. / I am the living bread that has come down from heaven; / whoever ingests this bread will exist eternally; / and the bread that I will provide is my flesh for the life of the world.”
| August 11 – Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time |
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1 Kgs 19:4-8 Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9 Eph 4:30–5:2 Jn 6:41-51 |
Truly, listening to Christ’s words, we realize that these bread miracles are integral to God’s teaching method. They reveal how God instructs us about His nature and our own. He is the sustenance we require; the sustenance that will genuinely support us. “I am the bread of life,” come “down from heaven,” “for the life of the world.”
Let us investigate, thus, this profound significance of “bread from heaven.” Our passage from St. Paul’s correspondence with the Ephesians will be beneficial here. In this letter, Paul encourages the Ephesians to “be imitators of God,” clarifying that this will entail “living in love” and “committing ourselves” to God and to each other.
Forgiveness
And this is the point where we might elaborate further. We could comprehend God’s forgiveness presented in Christ in a more complete and profound manner. The late Pope Benedict XVI spoke extensively about the “bread” of divine forgiveness. Reflecting on the crucifixion where Christ gave himself as bread (“I will give my flesh for the life of the world”), Benedict portrays Christ as “extended,” bridging the gap between God and humanity and thereby reconciling them through the love that now connects God and Man.
Indeed, Benedict reiterated time and again in his texts that the New Testament’s “message of love” is not solely about “brotherly love” or “community,” but the “direct love of” and “adoration of God.” According to Benedict, this represents the “essence of Christianity” and “the essence of authentic humanity.” “[A]doration is humanity’s greatest potential.”
The individual embodies “exodus” … representing love that transcends itself.
“The essential principle of Christian worship is thus this journey of exodus with its dual direction towards God and humanity. By elevating humanity to God, Christ includes it in his redemption. The reason the event on the Cross serves as the bread of life ‘for mankind’ is that the one who was crucified has transformed the essence of humanity into the affirmation of worship. … to the degree that this outpouring of love represents the ecstasy of man transcending his own self, where he is extended infinitely beyond his own limits, seemingly torn apart, far beyond his evident capacity for extension, worship is similarly the Cross … the dying of the grain of wheat, which can only yield fruit through death.
“Allowing God to work through us — that is the essence of Christian sacrifice” (“Introduction to Christianity,” Ignatius Press, $19.95).
In particular, St. Paul states that we should be kind-hearted and pardon one another in the same way that God has pardoned us through Christ.
