The past few Sundays our focus in the gospel has been on
chapter 6 of John and the mystery of Jesus as the bread of life.
If there is one thing we may be certain of it is the absolute
necessity of food for life. No bread no life. We also understand the way food
works in our body – we ingest the bread, then it is changed and absorbed into
our bodies – this is known as metabolism – and the bread become us.
We also know that in the spiritual world we cannot of our
own effort rise up into heaven and see God – to discover who God really is. But
God wants us to know him, so God chose to come to us – to take on a body the
same as ours, so that we could see Him, listen to Him, learn all about Him.
Yet God wanted even more than that – God wanted to have a
deep, personal, loving union with us – an intimate communion with him – person to
person. So God became flesh and dwells among us in Jesus. Now in Jesus this
union with God can take place.
St. John of the Cross, a profound mystic and teacher of
the spiritual life, describes this total union with Jesus in a poem; the title
of the poem is The Dark Night. In his poem John describe how in secret he
steels away in the night from his compound to go and rendezvous with his beloved
waiting his coming – the lover and his beloved unite.
The poem reads;
Upon
a darkened night
The
flame of love was burning in my breast
And
by a lantern bright
I
fled my house while all in quiet rest
Shrouded
by the night
And
by the secret stair I quickly fled
The
veil concealed my eyes
While
all within lay quiet as the dead
Oh
night thou was my guide
Oh
night more loving than the rising sun
Oh
night that joined the lover
To
the beloved one
Transforming
each of them into the other
But how was this communion of God and man to be seen so that
everyone could understand it and experience it? Jesus chose a perfect way. Jesus
gives us a simple sign, one we all know very well – bread – food and body and
life; a common sign but now to become a sign of a profound mystery. Jesus
transforms bread into His body so that when we consume this bread the two of us
become one body – Jesus in me and I in Jesus (Transforming each of us into the
other)
I brought communion to someone in the Villa Friday, and
as she received the host into her mouth she exclaimed. “Oh how beautifully
sweet this communion is in my mouth, Jesus I love you.”
It is Jesus who causes this communion of persons to
happen, we have only one part to play – to come with the eyes of faith to see, to see through the dark night, to see our lover.
As we will hear in the gospel readings for the next
couple of Sundays people complained about what Jesus was offering them. Faith had
not yet come to them. And in our day as well so many no longer are coming to
this table to eat the Bread of Union with God because of the same lack of faith
– a dark night is overtaking many these days. But thank God, like John of the
Cross, with the eyes of faith we will see through the dark night of doubt and will
come to this table and see he who is our lover – and here each of us will
become the other.
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