Sunday Gospel Comment

Sunday Gospel Comment

 

Alberic Jacovone OSB

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YEAR B

TWENTIETH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 17.8.03

Prov 9,1-6; Eph 5,15-20; Jn 6,51-58

Eating and Drinking

In the New Testament, two texts stand out for their Eucharistic impact: one is today's Gospel, John 6:51-58 and the other is First Corinthians 10:6 - 11:26. For their liturgical setting, categorical, imperative and community commitment, both seem an adaptation of a hymn, with a strong statement of faith and code of conduct attached to it. One gathers that the Community was disturbed by doubts, divisions and disorders, due to diverse cultural sensitivities among its Jewish members and those from "ethnic" nations. 

The text of John 6:51 - 58

I am the living bread that came down from heaven: Eat this bread and you will live forever

         The bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man (the Paschal Lamb of God) and drink His blood, you have no life in you.

Eat my flesh and drink my blood, and you have eternal life - and I will raise you up on the last day My flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. Eat my flesh and drink my blood, and you will live in me and I in you. Eat me, and you will live because of me.

         This is the bread come down from heaven not as the bread that your forbears ate, they are dead. Eat this bread and you will live forever.

The text of 1st Corinthian 10:16 - 11:26
Is much earlier and has a different setting. It resonates with the same urgent theme, and stands in utter rejection of pagan worship. It urges the community -and the reader- to be: neither rebellious as the Jews of Jesus time and of old, nor hopeless idolators as all pagans. In the Christian community, all converts -Jews and pagans alike- are one body, as they stand around the one Table of the Lord.

The blessing cup which we bless, is it not a communion with he blood of Christ? And the bread which we bread is it not a communion with the body of Christ? There is only one bread: Though we are many, we are one body and partake of the one bread.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot eat at the Lordıs table and at the table of demons.

Whatever you eat or drink, do everything for the glory of God. Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. And whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup unworthily is answerable for the body and blood of the Lord

So first examine yourself and then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For whoever eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks his own condemnation.

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