Thursday of 3rd Week of Easter 14th April 2016
"No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise that person up on the last day.
It is written in the prophets ; they will all be taught by God ; everyone who has listened to the Father has learnt from Him."
Jesus, after having performed the miracle of the multiplication of loaves, addresses himself to us in such a way so that we are able to adhere to his Word.
His death, Resurrection and his whole life enlighten the Last meal that he takes with his disciples. Jesus makes an invitation to the crowd to believe that by the mystery of the Cross, he transforms the world.
Despite our miseries, the Word of Jesus echoes still in our humanity, always bearing with it Jesus’ Victory.
The Body and Blood of Christ are here, given to us, and our humanity drawn to the Father is transformed in a fundamental way by the Eucharist.
God fills our whole life, all that we are, so we can be regenerated by Him.
At the heart of humanity in quest of life and meaning, the Father and the Holy Spirit draw to themselves all those drawn by God.
He is at work building the civilisation of Love.
In granting us his benevolence, God transforms the universe.
At the very heart of creation, thanks to the Eucharist, the wheat and grapes, the bread and wine contribute to the transformation of the universe.
Through Christ, we give thanks to God who comes in aid of our weakness, who comes to strengthen us so as to set us free. He has us recapitulate all things in Him so that the whole universe participates in His greatest glory, in his greatest Love.
“Not that anyone has seen the Father, except Him who has his being from God : he has seen the Father. In all truth I tell you, everyone who believes has Eternal Life.”
God Himself instructs us, the Eucharist has us go against death that haunts us. The way of the Resurrection made by God consists in us going through natural life so as to go beyond it.
God alone could go through death. Only the Power of His Infinite Love could do this.
When received in faith, Christ’s sacrifice pacifies the whole of humanity, but most of all, it pacifies those men and women who are most in need of comfort.
The world’s misery is transformed by the Passion of Jesus which regenerates all things. It isn’t easy to believe, as it isn’t easy to trust as we go about our daily life.
With Jesus, a surprising perspective is given to us to contemplate! Jesus, in His Body and Blood is given to us to overcome the mystery of iniquity, the mystery of evil spread throughout the world. The Church celebrates this mystery in a humanity at war, she infuses into the Church a new Love. Thus transformed, the world is recapitulated in the Eucharistic Body of Christ.
The Passion of Christ in the Eucharist is lived out for the whole of humanity and especially that of the most suffering who can offer up their life in union with Christ.
“I am the Bread of Life which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live forever ; and the Bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”
Faith is a gift from God which we need to welcome. All that we see and contemplate can lead us to Christ! We are introduced into this mystery in the gift of Jesus.
On the night before his passion, Jesus took the bread and said :
’Take, all of you, and eat; this is my Body’. Taking the cup of wine he said ’Drink, all of you, this is my Blood.’
It really is Jesus’s Blood poured out on the Cross, once and for all for the Salvation of mankind.
It really is his wounded and risen flesh that will be given so that the world may no longer live from a murderous passion but rather from a Passion of Love.
This mystery is celebrated in memorial for the Salvation of the world.
Jesus, come from Heaven, leads us into the very Life of God which is from all time and which goes on for ever.
It is the Person of Jesus and faith in Him that are at the heart of this gift of Life. Jesus took on our humanity so that we could share in his Divinity. To believe in Jesus is to welcome the gestures of the multiplication of the loaves and the Words that transform the world.
Even if these realities bother us, it is to try to understand their meaning. Jesus, the Bread come down from heaven, is waiting for our faith without which nothing is possible. The Person of Jesus, his acts and his Words, the Eucharistic sign, are the necessary food for our lives.