THE FATHER GIVES US THE TRUE BREAD


TUESDAY, THIRD WEEK OF EASTER

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

Eating the Bread of Obedience

Our baptism with water and the Holy Spirit was to bury everything dead and death-dealing in our persons so that washed clean with water from the font, the Holy Spirit may generate a new spirit in us. Saint Stephen made it clear that we were born of pagan parents in our natural life, therefore dead to God and resisting his life-giving graces. “You stubborn people, with your pagan hearts and pagan ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Can you name a single prophet your ancestors never persecuted? In the past, they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, and now you have become his betrayers, his murderers.” Stephen addressed these words to his Jewish brothers and, therefore, to his old self or nature. But he exempted himself from that fallen nature because of his new birth in the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. So, we should address the words to whatever remains of our old and unregenerated nature. We must keep rejecting and disowning the impulses of our old nature so that our new spiritual nature and life may blossom.

We must cultivate and tend to our spiritual life to experience the presence of God around us daily. Because the Holy Spirit generates our spiritual life with our faith in the death and resurrection of the Son of Man, we must live close to him in continuous prayer and meditation on the word of God within. We live the interior life in the presence of God. So, a spiritual man sees God always and in all things. “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.’” This spiritual vision is inaccessible to the man of flesh, to our old nature. Hence, they considered him to be blaspheming and stoned him to death. The spiritual man sees the Son of Man at the right hand of God, meaning that he sees the Son of Man as the complete expression of the Father’s will for us. He is the sign of God’s love and providential care. The miracles and signs that the Son of Man worked were to lead the people to this realisation, for them to believe in him as the Anointed or Just One. God forgives our sins and gives us a new spiritual life when we make this act of faith in the Son of Man he sent. We must believe that his death has ransomed us from our sins and death.

The people who witnessed the miraculous multiplication of the five barley loaves and two fish refused to admit the Son of Man as the Just One and refused to believe in him. They kept asking for physical signs but refused to follow the signs to the reality of the Saviour. “The people said to Jesus, ‘What sign will you give to show us that we should believe in you? What work will you do? Our fathers had manna to eat in the desert; as scripture says: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” We recognise ourselves in the people contending with our Lord for much of our religious practices are seeking after miracles, signs, wonders, and breakthroughs. We seek breakthroughs everywhere. When God delays in granting us breakthroughs or solutions to our present problems, we go to different shrines and join different cults. A spiritual man understands that the Father gives us our daily bread and takes care of our daily needs. “Jesus answered: ‘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.’” Jesus Christ is the true bread that comes down from heaven, for he is the Sacrament of the Father’s holy will for us. “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst.”

Let us pray: O God, who open wide the gates of the heavenly Kingdom to those reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, pour out on your servants an increase of the grace you have bestowed, that, having been purged of all sins, they may lack nothing that in your kindness you have promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BECOMING A DEPENDABLE FRIEND

Image
FRIDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 6:5-17; Ps 119:12,16,18,27,34-35; Mk 10:1-12 Making and being a Good Friend The usefulness of a faithful friend is the subject discussed in the passage of Sirach we are considering. From the qualities that make a good friend, we understand that faithfulness depends on the perfection we attain in the formative school of wisdom. The first lesson we learn in nature is faithfulness. The quality of faithfulness is so closely aligned with nature that we consider nature and faithfulness synonyms. The faithfulness of nature, and subsequently of wisdom, is hinted at when we read that wisdom stands at her post/gate daily to beckon the passers-by to turn in and partake of her table. Everything that God made participates in this faithfulness of wisdom in the sense that each remains faithful to his will without failing or leading our minds astray. First, Sirach admonishes us on friendliness to people in general: “A kindly turn of speech multiplies a ...
Read more

UNDERSTANDING OUR AFFLICTIONS

Image
ST. JEROME, PRIEST, DOCTOR Job 1:6-22; Ps 17:1-3,6-7; Lk 9:46-50 Salvation of the Just from the affliction of evil We have the beginning of Job in the first reading today. The reading has many hidden lessons we can learn to foster our relationship with God. The first that seems very obvious is the fact of Satan attending to God with the sons of God. By this, we must understand that every rational creature of God is among his sons. They all attend to God, from whom they receive life and sustenance. God sustains all his creatures in being, both material and immaterial creatures. They also ask God for permission to carry out a course of action. Nothing moves in the heavens and on earth without God knowing and permitting it. The attending of rational creatures is what we call prayer. The good and bad angels pray to God for permission to carry out actions or bring about ends that agree with his divine will. God usually hears or permits these prayers based on his divine justice in acco...
Read more

The offsprings of the Old man and the New Man

Image
Monday, fifth week of lent/2024 Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP Offsprings of Old man and New Man To be able to live the new life within the new Covenant in Jesus Christ, the old life must come to an end. The distinctive difference between the old man and the new man is the focus of desires. The old man and all who live by him have their desires focussed on the satisfaction of self. On the other hand, the new man and those living by him desires only to fulfil God's holy will. Thus, the old man and his offspring obey the law of sin and death. Living for self alone breeds sins, and sin causes death. So, the old man and all living by him are dead and harbingers of death to others. They are adept at manipulating the Law of God to perpetuate their interest and selfish desires. An example of this skill is the treatment the two old judges of Israel in Babylon meted out to Susanna, wife of Joachim, employing the Law of Moses as given in the first reading. “Two elderly men had ...
Read more