Since the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, our scripture readings for Sunday Mass are organized into a three-year cycle. The first year we hear from Saint Matthew’s Gospel, the second year from Saint Mark, and the third from Saint Luke. Right in the middle of the Year of Saint Mark, for six weeks beginning this sunday, the Gospel readings are taken from the sixth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel, and we won’t hear from Saint Mark again until September.
The sixth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel is a crucial chapter; it contains what biblical scholars call Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse—the Lord’s teaching about the Bread of Life—the Eucharist.
In the upcoming weeks, we will hear again the Lord teach that He is the Bread of Life, and that all those who come to Him will never hunger, that those who eat the Bread of Life will live forever, and that the bread that he gives, the Eucharist, is his flesh for the life of the world.
John chapter six begins not with direct teaching, but with the story we heard today of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes. This miracle story, sets the tone for the Lord’s teaching on the Eucharist to follow, and contains some important lessons about the Eucharist as well.
The First lesson that we do well to reflect upon is this miracle and the teaching to follow was His idea, the Eucharist is part of God’s plan for the Church, it’s not a human invention. The Lord planned this miracle, he planned this teaching. As the Gospel told us today, “he knew what he was going to do” even before he did it. And so, the Eucharist is part of God’s plan for Human Redemption.
Anyone who has ever thrown a banquet or cooked a meal knows that some planning is involved. And what’s the purpose of the meal, to nourish and to bring people, to bring a family together. The Eucharist is a meal that God has planned for the same purpose, to nourish and to bring the human family together.
Because of Original Sin, the Human Family is malnourished and divided. We keep going back to addictions and earthly, selfish pursuits which don’t feed our spirit. And our enemy, the Devil, loves to keep us spiritually malnourished and divided.
One example, I think of the enemies tactics is how he has attacked the family meal. One of the saddest sights is to see a family at a restaurant, at a meal, where parents and children, instead of talking to each other, they are using their mobile devices. Use of cell phones, books, other distractions, have no place at the Christian table. (That goes for Mass too, by the way) Why? Because they keep the family from communicating, from communion, with each other. And they keep us from prayer, from communicating, and communion, with God.
So, the Eucharist, is part of God’s plan, for reconciling fallen humanity with himself, and with each other.
Secondly, from the Gospel story, we see derive another important lesson. We see God doing somethings for us we cannot do for ourselves. The crowds who followed Jesus had no food, the disciples had no money to buy food, the five loaves and two fish were not enough to do the job, the people couldn’t feed themselves and on their own the apostles were helpless to meet the needs of the people.
Some very poor scripture scholars argue that actually the people had plenty of food, but they didn't want to share it—that the real miracle is that somehow Jesus, by sharing what he had, convinced them all to do the same thing. Such an insinuation is nonsense, it distorts the biblical data.
The fact that Jesus really did multiply the loaves and fish is emphasized by today's First Reading, where the prophet Elisha performed a similar miracle for a hundred people. Only the power of God was sufficient to meet the needs described by these passages of the Bible.
It reminds us of another Old Testament passage where only God’s power was sufficient: when he sent the Israelites manna in the desert. That too was a foreshadowing of the Eucharist, the true bread from heaven, as next week's Gospel passage will remind us. If Jesus hadn't intervened with his miracle, those people would have gone hungry; they needed bread, and only Jesus could give it to them.
The same thing goes for us today. Heaven is not reachable by human effort alone. Sinful man cannot redeem himself. Divided humanity cannot unify itself. We need God. Sinful man needs a Divine Savior, spiritually malnourished humanity needs a Divine Physician. Similarly, with the Mass, no Christian, priest or lay has the power to change bread and wine into flesh and blood by his own power. Only through the Lord’s gift of the Sacrament of Holy Orders can we have the Eucharist.
To live the lives of wisdom, courage, hope, faith, and self-giving that we are called to live, in a sin-infected culture that is like a desert, void of all those virtues, we need God's help.
This is why, from the very beginning to our present day, it is considered gravely sinful to fail to come to Mass when we aren’t hindered by illness or age. Something crucial, something absolutely vital, is missing from the Christian’s relationship with God when we fail to come to Mass as we should.
But also, for those of us who do come to Mass, we also have a responsibility to do our part to open ourselves to the spiritual nourishment, to the grace, of the Sacrament.
When little effort is made throughout the week to pray, to practice virtue, to repent of sin, to prepare our minds and souls for this great banquet, little grace is obtained. I know many Catholics who say, I don’t go to mass because I don’t get anything out of it. When little is put into mass, little is gotten out of mass.
But when you attentively listen to the sacred words of the liturgy, desiring to integrate the wisdom of God’s Word into your life, when you come to Church conscious of your blessings with gratitude to God for them, when you come here with trust that God will give you the strength you need to be holy and to remain faithful to Him throughout the week’s challenges, when you fully, consciously, actively unite yourself to the sacrifice of Christ made present on this altar, and when you come here with openness to being led by the Spirit to work for the spread of the Gospel outside these walls, you will get something out of mass, you will get the life of Jesus Himself, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
