HEAVENLY BREAD FOR THE ADOPTED CHILDREN

TUESDAY, Third Week of Eastertide

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke,OP

Acts 7:51-8:1; Ps 31:3-4,6,8,17,21; Jn 6:30-35

Theme: Heavenly Bread for the Adopted Children of God

To the question the people asked about doing the work that is pleasing to God, Jesus answered them: “This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent.” This answer the Lord gave them is central to understanding Stephen’s wholesome sacrifice of self. Based on faith in Jesus Christ, whom the Father sent to be our Saviour, Stephen is pleasing to God the Father. The scripture already testified to his faith when it described him as a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. To a man of faith in Jesus Christ, the heaven is always open. On this ground, we have posited that the faith community is heavenly. We see the veil covering our mortal eyes thrown open to Stephen. We saw the reality of heaven through his eyes. “But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand. ‘I can see heaven thrown open’ he said ‘and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’” He witnessed the reality of heaven as in communion with the community of believers here on earth. Each Christian is in communion with the Risen Lord through the Holy Spirit. Thus, the glorified Son of Man is the head of the community, and the members form the Body of the Risen Lord. The Son of Man standing at the right hand of God is a reference to the Risen Lord as the Advocate of his faithful before the Father; it is also a reference to the Risen Lord and his members who constitute a mystical Body by sharing the same Holy Spirit, who aids us to participate in the same intercessory role of the Son of Man. Subsequently, when the Spirit moves us to pray, he unites us with our Head, Jesus Christ our Lord, before the Father in heaven; the Father answers our prayers through his Only Begotten Son, our God.

The Eternal Word comes to us as our daily bread in answer to our prayers made according to the will of the Father. The heavenly bread comes to those who have faith in God’s word. For this reason, our Lord explained to those who came to him for material bread that the work the Father requires from them is faith in the One He sent. When they alluded to the manna their forefathers ate in the desert during their journey from Egypt as a sign given by Moses, Jesus clarified to them that the real bread was not manna, but the word of God sent to them, which they refused to believe. The manna was the sacrament of the word of God on which man ought to live. “I tell you most solemnly, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread; for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” In this teaching of our Lord, we see the priority of prayer and the proclamation of the word of God as the apostles rightly considered when they decided to ordain the deacons. These two holiest activities of the heavenly community are what characterise the life of adopted children of God as a participation in the life of the Son of Man. The converts commence with prayer led by the Holy Spirit and gradually graduate to the proclamation of the word of God. They accomplish the latter tacitly through living a faithful Christian life. The breaking of bread ritualised these two activities and defined the new Christian community. The presence of the Risen Lord and the fact he stated in the gospel is what we ritually celebrate in the Eucharist. “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst.” The celebration of the Eucharist, therefore, expedites the process of our adoption by our eating of the Lord.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, to believe firmly in your word that gives life, that we may truly and reverently commune with you in the breaking of bread and fruitfully receive you in therein. 

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