RBWords

     "Food; glorious food!" - the orphans in the Broadway musical, "Oliver," sing at the beginning of the show.  Of course, they complain about the food at the orphanage: "All we ever get is gru-elllll!"  The Israelites in the first scripture today complain that they are going to starve in the desert.  So God sends them "manna from heaven."  Later on they will complain about the manna, but God's providential intervention with manna assumes its place along with the journey through the Red Sea as a pivotal moment in the collective memory of Judaism.  In the Gospel of John, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is designed to introduce a different way of looking at "bread from heaven."  In the "synoptic gospels" the same incident focuses on the feeding, but in John the focus is on the one who is feeding and how he is the real food!   

     As in so many of the dialogues in the Gospel of John, there is "misunderstanding," because the audience is trying to figure out how Jesus managed to feed them in a manner like God did for their ancestors. Jesus is trying to focus their attention on "food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you."  When the listeners realize that Jesus is speaking about himself as food, they think he is speaking of cannibalism!  Ultimately the teaching becomes, for some, too hard to accept and at the end of the chapter, Jesus has to say to his disciples, "Will you go, too?"  What we now call "the Eucharist" becomes the deciding point of faith.  Can they (and we) believe that bread and wine become the person of Jesus Christ - as the traditional words put it:  "body and blood, soul and divinity!" ?

     We Catholics in the Latin rite have become accustomed to "going to communion" and we simply follow the next person out of the pew and up to the front!  We may not think too much about "who" it is but rather "what" it is!  This may put us in the same position as that audience at the synagogue in Capernaum.  We are not committing "cannibalism" nor are we just receiving a token symbol of Jesus' life.  It is Jesus Christ himself we are receiving in the form that he established at the Last Supper.  As one wonderful young woman said to me at the end of her instruction before becoming a Catholic: "Once you accept the Eucharist, the rest is easy!"   Taking this for granted is something we "cradle Catholics" need to avoid!  This "food" is the very stuff of faith!   AMEN