In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal.”
In today’s Gospel, the Lord exhorts us to seek him for his own sake, rather than for the temporal benefits that we think we might get from him. Jesus had just fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish, and when the crowds come seeking him, he says to them: “You seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal.”
Saint Augustine said, “How many there are who seek Jesus, only to gain some temporary benefit… Jesus is scarcely sought for Jesus’ sake.”
Jesus says, “Do not labor for the food which perishes…” In other words, do not set your heart unequivocally on, nor commit your action unequivocally to, anything or anyone in all of creation. The key word being “unequivocally.” As the Lord says in the Gospel of Matthew: seek FIRST the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and by seeking the kingdom, you will become a co-heir, with Christ, of everything else.
Jesus says, “Labor… for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give you.” And he says explicitly what this food is: it is Jesus himself. “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.”
We are therefore to labor to attain Christ himself. But what does this mean? How does it work? Well it begins with FAITH. With believing in God. And the Lord himself introduces the centrality of faith in today’s reading where he says “He who COMES TO ME shall not hunger, and he who BELIEVES IN ME shall never thirst.” And this is the proper sequence: first we must COME TO Christ, and once we have encountered him, the encounter becomes an invitation – and the material condition for the growth of our faith.
In the lives of individuals, this “coming to Christ” means listening for his voice. It begins, perhaps, with the stirring of a person’s conscience, or with their heart being engaged by what they know, intuitively or intellectually, to be true or good or beautiful. It continues when one begins to be engaged by the truth of the Gospel, as for example in the catechumenate. Major milestones are reached with acts of the will – with decisions along the way – to continue to conform one’s life to the commandments of Christ. And each such act of the will is likewise an act of FAITH, of believing that what Christ says is true, and that therefore we should live accordingly.
One also thereby continues to make progress in one’s journey to God – along the path that is straight but difficult, and through the gate that is open but narrow. The biggest milestone on this journey is the regeneration of Baptism and one’s admission to the sacraments of the new law. Likewise here one is faced with a decision: to conform one’s life to the discipline of communion, not only by showing up to mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, which the Church and the Lord himself expect of us – but also to conform one’s life to the moral demands of the Gospel. Life in Christ should change everything for us, because in him we are “born anew” in the Spirit of God (Jn. 3.3). And because we have a new life, we have a new way of relating to others. Relationships of every stripe should be transformed by our conformity to the pattern of Christ: family relationships, economic relationships, sexual relationships, our relationship with the government, with friends, and even with enemies – all must be transformed by the Spirit of God and the discipline of communion: all must become HOLY. This is what St. Peter means when he says, “Gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct…” (1 Pet. 1.13ff).
Furthermore, we make progress in our journey to Christ – we “come to” him – as we begin to pray and as our prayer deepens. How often are our prayers about getting something from the Lord? How often do they have the character, “Lord, please do _______ for me,” or “Lord if you will just do ______, I will do ______,”? If our prayer remains in this order, we expose ourselves to the danger not only of treating God as a means to an end, – whereas in reality, he is the only end worthy of being desired in and for himself, toward whom everything in creation is oriented, and for whom everything is a means – not only do we set up something above God in the order of our desire, and so approach the sin of idolatry, but by thinking and praying this way, we risk cheating ourselves of the fullness of joy and peace.
I don’t mean that we should not ask God for things. We should. And we are told to do so in Scripture – St. Peter says, “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God,” (Phil. 4.6), and the example of the apostles and saints confirms that this kind of prayer is licit and can be good. But it is not the best kind of prayer, and in order for it to acquire its proportional goodness, it must be informed by what is higher and better.
And here we return to the linchpin of FAITH. In today’s Gospel reading, the people ask Jesus what it means to do “the works of God”. Jesus answers: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” The work of God is BELIEVING in Jesus. But what does that mean? It means much more than simply believing that he lived – or even believing that he still lives. As St. James says of this kind of belief: “Even the demons believe -- and shudder” (Jas. 2.19). Rather, to believe in Jesus is to believe in the witness the Father bears him, chiefly by raising Jesus from the dead. And the truth to which the Father thus bears witness, is that Jesus is who he says he is: the Christ, the Son of the living God. To believe in Jesus means (1) to believe THIS, and then (2) to rely on his promises, and (3) to rely on what he has accomplished on our behalf – by dying on the cross. Saint Augustine says: “To believe in [Jesus means] believing to love [him], believing to honour Him, believing to go to Him, and to be made members incorporate of His Body. The faith which God requires of us, is that which works by LOVE.”
Life in Christ therefore means: to labor “for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal.” And we make progress in this labor as our faith deepens. And our faith deepens as we progress – as our vision of Christ becomes clarified by love, and the obedience that comes from love (John 14.15). This is the archetype of what the Psalmist refers to in today’s Psalm where he says, “so mortals ate the bread of angels.” Because Jesus is “the bread of God… that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.” He is called the “bread of angels” because “the heavenly powers derive their life and vigor from contemplating him in open vision” (Denis the Carthusian). And this too is our destiny. As we are drawn more and more into the contemplation of the Lord in open vision, the more we find ourselves subsisting on the food which endures to eternal life, and the less anything else matters. We discover peace and joy in every circumstance, even suffering. We discover, with Saint Paul, “the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want” (Phil. 4.12). And it all begins, as Saint Augustine said, with seeking Jesus for Jesus’ sake.
So far I have been talking about the spiritual life. But there is another, more obvious, and related, significance to the Lord’s words in today’s Gospel, namely that concerning the Mass, wherein we receive the Bread of Heaven, the Body and Blood of the Lord. Here too faith is the linchpin, not because the efficacy of the sacrament depends on our faith, but because the benefits we draw from our reception of it stand in proportion to the faith in which we approach it. Saint Paul said that we may even harm ourselves by partaking of the sacrament unworthily (1 Cor. 11.27ff). I will leave you with a word of advice from Alcuin of York about receiving the Bread of Heaven in faith: “When, through the hand of the priest, you receive the Body of Christ, think not of the priest which you see, but [think] of the Priest you do not see. The priest is the dispenser of this food, not the author. The Son of man gives Himself to us, that we may abide in Him, and He in us. Do not conceive that Son of man to be the same as other sons of men: He stands alone in abundance of grace, separate and distinct from all the rest: for that Son of man is the Son of God.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment