THE BREAD FROM HEAVEN


MONDAY, THIRD WEEK OF EASTERTIDE   

Acts 6:8-15; Ps 119:23-24,26-27,29-30; Jn 6:22-29

Working for Spiritual Food

The Easter celebration renews Christians’ spiritual youthfulness, as it is the celebration of our spiritual birth. At the celebration of the Lord's resurrection, the Church gives birth to many children, whom she gradually nurtures into the likeness of the man of heaven, and leads them on the path of eternal life. The Church gives birth to a multitude of children through water and the Holy Spirit, making men subjects of the kingdom of heaven. She is able to do this because of the presence of the Risen Lord within her. As the mystical body of Jesus Christ, the Church makes the Risen Lord present to her children, who are marked by their faith in the Son of Man, through the celebration of the paschal mysteries. These paschal mysteries of the Lord are the sources of the spiritual life she gives to her children and sustains in them. By her proclamation of the Gospel of resurrection of our Lord, she offers spiritual life to all men and women who believe in the resurrection of the Son of Man. The resurrection is objectively offered to all by the resurrection of the Son of Man, but individually received by faith.

The faithful obedience of the Son of Man unto death made him worthy to receive the resurrection from God as a merit, which he offers to his brothers and sisters as a gift. It was not for his own sake that he endured his passion and death, but for us and for our salvation. As he believed in the Father and sacrificed himself to fulfil the divine will, he bids us believe in him and offer our lives in union with him to the Father. The resurrection he received will surely be ours if we believe and follow him. He invited the Jews during his life on earth to faith in the word of God he proclaimed to them, describing himself as the imperishable bread. “I tell you most solemnly, you are not looking for me because you have seen the signs, but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat. Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you, for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.” The Father has impressed his divine will on the Son of Man through uniting him hypostatically (personally) to the Eternal Word. The Holy Spirit given to him without restraint demonstrates this full approval. Because of this full approval, the fact that the Son of Man cannot err in teaching us the will of God makes him our bread from heaven. Our faith in him assures us of this daily food of the will of God.

The Son of Man sealed the human part of the covenant at his death on the Cross. His resurrection brings us the certainty of resurrection offered to all men who walk the path he threaded for us. The gift of the Holy Spirit to believers demonstrates God’s seal on believers. Saint Stephen, who presented the will of God to the unbelieving Jews and other converts to Judaism, proved the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and its implications for all men. “They found they could not get the better of him because of his wisdom, and because it was the Spirit that prompted what he said.” Just as in the case of Stephen, the believers are to be directed by the Holy Spirit in their lives and proclamation of the Gospel. Exactly what the Lord informed Nicodemus, that the life of those born of water and Spirit is like the wind, which we can hear, but cannot predict its direction. They are ruled by the will of the Father, which the Holy Spirit reveals to them as the bread from heaven. This defines righteousness for Christians; namely, the doing of God’s will, revealed in Jesus Christ. “Though princes sit plotting against me I ponder on your statutes. Your will is my delight; your statutes are my counsellors.” The same thing Jesus replied to the Jews who enquired about pleasing God. “What must we do if we are to do the works that God wants? Jesus gave them this answer, ‘This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent.’”

Let us pray: Grant, we pray, almighty God, that, putting off our old self with all its ways, we may live as Christ did, for through the healing paschal remedies you have conformed us to his nature. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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