Holy Mary, Mother of the Holy Eucharist, help us to love Jesus in the Holy Eucharist above all things and to offer our love, our hearts and our whole self to Him at this Holy Mass. Help those who are struggling with faith in the Holy Mass and the Holy Eucharist, obtain for them, for all us from Your Divine Son a deeper faith, complete and absolute trust and perfect love for our God for one another. Jesus I trust in Thee. Amen.

John 6:24-35 18th Sunday in Ordinary time. August 2nd, 2015.

In today’s Gospel we read the account of the people looking for food. We will continue to read from St. John, Chapter 6, for the next couple of weeks. If you recall, last week we read about the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. This week, we pick-up where we left off with this very enlightening passage where Jesus tries to teach the people that the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is really a miracle to help them and lead them to faith in a much greater miracle, the Miracle of the Holy Eucharist. I think that the way Jesus teaches and leads the people is very instructive. So, let’s take a closer look and see what it might teach us.

First, the people question Jesus about how he had arrived in that place. Jesus doesn’t really seem to answer their question- he doesn’t say, “I crossed over here by land because you all wanted to take me off to Jerusalem and make me King.” Instead, Jesus responds with something unexpected. He looks into their hearts and sees their motives- they want only bread to eat. In other words, they mistakenly want only their earthly needs met; they want only a earthly messiah-a “bread king;” that is, a politician who would fulfill their earthly needs and desires and give them freedom; but not freedom in its truest since, the freedom to worship God by their holiness of lives, the freedom to live the truth, to choose the Good, the True and the Beautiful; but instead, they want freedom to do whatever they please.

And so, the people in today’s Gospel really want only a temporal leader, an earthly king-president that would only free them from the oppression of the Romans instead of freeing them from the worst oppression, the oppression to sin. You see, sin is the real oppressor, because it takes away true freedom, the freedom to love for the other’s sake alone, and instead imprisons one in disordered self-love.

And so, in the multiplication miracle, the people recognized merely a worldly sign. Could Jesus be the one to lead them to easy street and good times? They wanted Jesus to be a geo-political messiah that would bring bread, much like Moses had done in the O.T; and then lead them to the promise land flowing with milk and honey. But a “promise land” understood as only a land of economic peace and stability, instead of land of freedom to not only worship God privately, but to worship Him publicly, by living one’s faith publicly as a witness to the truth and beauty of the Gospel.

And so, the Divine Jesus reads their hearts, knowing they’re not understanding what the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves was really trying to teach them. He sees that they just want some free gourmet food to fill their bellies, but fail to understand that economic prosperity only comes from being a faithful and moral people, a people who are walking in the ways of God and in His Love. And so Jesus sees that they fail to see that their geo-economic problems, their oppression and slavery and terrible economic times, the evil in their day, were not the result of the Romans or any other enemy or worldly power, but were instead the result of their own infidelity to the Lord.

So, with great compassion, and understanding their true hunger, Jesus tells them to search for the Food that will give true life and freedom, the fullness of life here on earth ending in heavenly joy. Jesus tells them to search for heavenly food. With this food they would never be hungry again. Jesus wants to give them food to fulfill their deepest desire, food supernatural and eternal life- not merely temporal life.

Jesus was not the one to fulfill their earthly desire for a political leader, but he would go far beyond their earthly desires to the inner depths of man’s heart-to his deepest desire, which is to be loved, to be loved by Jesus the One who the Father has sent. Jesus wanted to be their King, but King of their hearts for He is the King of Love, the King who is Love, because He is the God who is love. In His Love, Jesus is the only One to fill all their desires earthly and heavenly.

Yet, the people respond with a question to continue to test Jesus, “How can we do the works of God? Well, for them the work of God meant very temporal or earthly realities; it meant to them merely being good people; that is doing the minimum in order that God wouldn’t get mad at them; it wasn’t a question of love, of giving of themselves totally to God and to neighbor without measure. So, Jesus confronts them and brings them back to Himself- the work of God is to believe in the One sent by the Father, which of course was Jesus himself; and then to live that faith out in love by doing the Will of the Father.

Again they continue, “but what sign can you give that we would have faith in you?” (Remember now that Jesus had just finished doing so many signs-miracles. He multiplied the loaves and fishes and cured many who were ill; he brought the dead back to life, walked on water, and yet they still did not believe, still did not trust, still did not love). They just would not give up their own ideas of who the Messiah should be. So they refer to Moses. After all they believed it was Moses who led them out of slavery and gave them bread to eat. They believed wrongly that the new messiah promised by Moses would merely lead them out of physical slavery and give them earthly bread. So it would be only this person, this earthly type of messiah, leader-president that the people would put their trust in.

Jesus cuts to the chase; HE counters and corrects them by saying it was not Moses who gave you food in the desert by my Father in heaven. It is my Father who gives you the real heavenly bread. God’s bread comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world.” They respond that they want this bread for the life of the world.

And this is where it seems, Jesus really goes too far- he tells them that He himself is the Bread of Life, and that, “the one who comes to me will never hunger and never thirst.” I do not think they could even begin to grasp what Jesus was saying to them, for they lacked faith. They just would not accept this teaching, in fact this is the only time in the Gospels were we are told, many of his disciples left and no longer believed in Him, “This is a hard saying who can believe it; that Jesus would give Himself, His true flesh and His true Blood as their True Food (cf. John 6;66…that’s right! 666!).

By looking more closely at the discourse in today’s Gospel we can discover that the more things change the more they stay the same. We too, even us who are followers of Christ, can too often look only for an earthly messiah and earthy leader as the only answer to our problems, as the only one who will fill our desires. Instead of looking to the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ truly present in the Holy Eucharist to fill the desires of our heart and to help us solve our problems, we instead turn to political leaders who promises to fill our desires by bringing about economic prosperity but yet political leaders who at the same time go against the Commandments and precepts of God.

However, as History proves over and over again, any leader who tries to build the kingdom of man without reference to the Kingdom of God, to God’s Laws and His Holy Church is following in the footsteps of other so-called earthly messiahs who promised the same-- nero; lenin, stalin, hitler; and Mao se tung... These false messiahs at first may have seemed to fixed the economy, but in the end destroyed it and the soul of their country; and in the process killed millions, born and unborn, while so many people looked the other way. Lured by the empty promises of their false messiah so many mistakenly put lesser issues before the non-negotiable issues of life, family, traditional marriage; and before, the freedom to worship God and freedom to follow their informed conscience, informed by God Truths-the teachings of His Holy Catholic Church and not their own opinions.

This is what is so extremely dangerous about our current situation. These are very troubling times, economically, politically, culturally. History shows that in tough times and in desperation, people will sadly too often turn to a charismatic leader for solutions, instead of God. And in the process, they end up losing their freedoms, many of them their lives, and even worse risk losing their soul and the soul of their country to follow this so-called “messiah.” And as a result, dignity of the human person is rejected and the most abhorrent crimes against humanity result…just look at the selling of baby parts by Planned Parenthood in our own day—grizzly on a level that at least is equal to, if not surpassing, the holocaust-the womb as become a killing field and a place of gruesome acts on the level of Joseph Mengele.

For us, deeper faith is the answer to all our problems; faith in Jesus, faith that Jesus is really, truly physically present in the Holy Eucharist and that He love us; the answer is deeper Faith in the Holy Mass as the source and summit of the graces we need to change and convert our country, our world, our families and ourselves. Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and through the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass wants to work miracles of grace in our world and our families; but He can only do so through the hearts of those who truly believe, through our faith, adoration, hope-trust and love in Him.

Faith is a gift we’ve been given but it needs to grow to maturity. It takes our personal effort to cooperate in Its growth. We need to work at it with all our heart and soul, mind and will, with all our strength, and not just on Sunday, but all week; 24/7/365, every day remaining of our live; Our Faith in Jesus and His true present in the Holy Eucharist needs to become our absolute priority. For Faith reminds us that this life is short and eternity is oh so long.

In the end, Faith grows by spending as much time as we can outside of Holy Mass with the One we love and who loves us, Jesus, the Bread of Life, truly present in the Holy Eucharist, kneeling before Him begging his mercy on us and on our whole world and the leaders of the world; and asking Him to increase our trust in Him and so our love in Him. Time in front of Jesus reveals to us who we really are, for better and for worse, so Faith grows as well by frequent reception of the Sacrament of Confession. And finally faith grows by desiring, studying and praying to know more about Jesus, about his teachings, which the Church gives us

Let us at this Holy Mass ask Jesus to strengthen our resolve and efforts to know our faith and to know and love the Holy Eucharist which is truly Jesus Christ. When we receive Him in the Holy Eucharist let us spend some time kneeling in our pew adoring and loving him, and asking him to help us to adore, love, trust and believe in him more. Let us spend some time with after Holy Mass, just a few minutes to thank Him for the great privilege of being able to not only attend Mass, but actually to receive Him, His Body, blood, Soul, into our body, blood and soul; His divinity into our humanity.

Holy Mary, Mother of the Holy Eucharist, help us to love Jesus in the Holy Eucharist above all things and to offer our love, our hearts and our whole self to Him at this Holy Mass. Help those who are struggling with faith in the Holy Mass and the Holy Eucharist, obtain for them, for all us from Your Divine Son a deeper faith, complete and absolute trust and perfect love for our God for one another. Jesus I trust in Thee. Amen..