Nineteenth Sunday of the Year - 2024

Each year in mid summer for five consecutive Sundays the gospel passage is taken from chapter 6 of John's gospel where we focus on 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) In the Offertory of the Mass as the the priest is preparing to offer the bread and wine he says prayers which we may not be familiar with because he says them quietly. He pours wine into the chalice, then he takes the cruet of water and pours a few drops into the wine in the chalice quietly saying this prayer: " By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity." As this drop of water descends into the wine it is no longer water, it has become wine. So when we receive Holy communion our soul, like the drop of water is absorbed  into union with Christ. Now we say with St. Paul, "It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20) Once when I brought communion to someone in the Villa 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.

Link to Audio Version of the 

Dark Night