XX Sunday of Ordinary Time: Not a series of rules but a person

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Dear brothers and sisters, Fiat!

Last Sunday we listened to the recommendations of the Apostle Paul (Eph 5), with which he traces the portrait of the ideal Christian. Those recommendations continue today with an invitation to make good use of our time. In fact, the one who wastes time in idleness, vice, or banality, can hardly be called a good Christian, because he wastes opportunities to do good.

The passage from today’s Gospel concludes (Jn 6:51-58) the discourse of Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum, concerning the Eucharist that He would institute some time later, during the Last Supper. Jesus continues the discourse on communion in an extremely realistic way, at the limit of sharpness, and with an impressive insistence: “The bread that I will give is my flesh…; Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood…; For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink…; Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood… remains in me.”

We understand how these words may have confused (we will hear this next Sunday) Jesus’ disciples, who did not yet know how He would give Himself to eat. However those words are fundamental; It is not by chance that the evangelist begins the account of the life of Jesus with an affirmation (Jn 1:14) that can be seen as title: “The Word became flesh”. Moreover, in the prologue, the evangelist announces also why the Word, the Son of God, became flesh, that is a man: ” To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God “. With these words the evangelist summarizes another aspect of the speech of Capernaum, concerning the consequences of “eating the flesh of Jesus”. We understand it trough the following sentences: “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world “. unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

Those words also lead us to reflect on a more general but fundamental theme: what is faith? What is religion? and in particular the Christian religion? How does it differentiate itself from the others? According to some people, one religion is as good as another: it is in any case the relationship between man and what he considers as transcendent entities, however he wants to call them. But a minimum of study suffices to show how this opinion is unfounded; all scholars recognize at least the basic difference between the positive religions (the monotheism of Jews, Christians and Muslims), which profess to rely on a divine revelation, and natural religions, usually polytheistic, originated from simple human reflection.

Without dwelling on such a complex subject, the Christian faith is distinguished by the Incarnation: God has not only revealed Himself to men, but He Himself became man in the person of Jesus, the Word became flesh. Consequently, the Christian is not a man who recognizes as divine a series of utterances and tries to translate them into his own life; being a Christian does not mean embracing a philosophy, nor sharing a series of worship practices with other people. The peculiarity of the Christian is something that is not found in any other religion: his faith allows him to meet “a Person”, it makes him adhere to that Person who is unique, who is man and at the same time God, a Person with whom he can weave a relationship of love, of trust, which leads to welcoming all that belongs to him: His words, His style of life, His promises. Moreover, that relationship is nourished by finding its visible manifestation, in participating in the Eucharist, in which those who love feed on the Beloved and become one with Him.

On June 18, 1923 Luisa reported in her diary an important teaching of Jesus on the Eucharist, in particular on why Jesus wanted to institute the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

The prodigy was great and incomprehensible to human mind. For the creature to receive a Man and God, to enclose the infinite in a finite being, and to give to this infinite Being divine honors, decorum and a dwelling worthy of Him – this mystery was so abstruse and incomprehensible, that the Apostles themselves, while they easily believed in the Incarnation and in many other mysteries, remained troubled before this one, and their intellects were reluctant to believe. And it took Jesus’ repeated saying for them to surrender.

So, what to do? Jesus, who instituted It, was to take care of everything, since, when the creature would receive Him, the Divinity was not to lack the honors, the divine decorum, the dwelling worthy of God. Therefore, as Jesus instituted the Most Holy Sacrament, His Eternal Will, united to His human will, made present to Him all the hosts which were to undergo the sacramental consecration until the end of centuries. And Jesus looked at them, one by one; He consumed them, and He saw His Sacramental Life palpitating in each host, yearning to give Itself to creatures.

Jesus’ Humanity, in the name of the whole human family, took on the commitment for all, and gave a dwelling within Itself to each host; and His Divinity, which was inseparable from Him, surrounded each sacramental host with divine honors, praises and blessings, to give worthy decorum to His Majesty. So, each sacramental host was deposited in Him, and contains the dwelling of His Humanity and the cortege of the honors of His Divinity; otherwise, how could He descend into the creature? And it was only because of this that He tolerated sacrileges, coldness, irreverences, ingratitudes, since, in receiving Himself, He secured His own decorum, the honors and the dwelling which befitted His very Person. Had He not received Himself, He could not have descended into creatures, and they would have lacked the way, the door, the means to receive Him.

This is Jesus’ usual way in all His works: He does them once in order to give life to all the other times in which they are repeated, uniting them to the first act as if they were one single act. So, the power, the immensity, the all-seeingness of the Divine Will made Him embrace all centuries; It made present to Him the communicants and all the sacramental hosts; and He received Himself as many times, to make His very Self pass, through Himself, into each creature.

The same was for the act of the Incarnation of His Life and of His Passion. Jesus incarnated Himself only once, one was His Life, one His Passion; yet, this Incarnation, Life and Passion is for all and for each one, as if it were for one alone. So, they are still as though in act, and for each one, as if He were now incarnating Himself and now suffering His Passion. If it were not so, Jesus would not be operating as God, but as creature, who, not containing a divine power, cannot let herself be possessed by all, nor give herself to all.

Moreover…one who does the Divine Will and lives in It, comes to embrace the works of His Humanity, because He loved so much for the creature to become similar to Him. And since the Divine Will and hers are one, God’s Will takes pleasure in her, and, amusing Itself, It places all the good He contains into the creature, and He forms in her the deposit of the very sacramental hosts.

The Divine Will, which she contains, lends her and surrounds her with divine decorum, homages and honors; and Jesus entrusts everything to her, because he is certain to keep His operating in a safe place, as the Divine Will makes Itself actor, spectator and custodian of all His goods, of His works, and of His very Life.

don Marco