OMELIE / Omelie EN

04 ago 2024

04/08/2024 - 18th Sunday in O.T. - B

04/08/2024 - 18^th Sunday in O.T. - B

Reading 1 EXO 16,2-4.12-15 Psalm 77 Reading 2 EPH 4,17.20-24 Gospel JN 6,24-35

The first reading and today’s Gospel talk about bread. The Jews are complaining with Moses and Aaron because along the way in the desert they have nothing to eat. They are missing the time in which they were in Egypt, where they were not wanting neither for bread nor for meat: they forgot that then they were deprived of their freedom, above all the freedom to serve the Lord and so the possibility to obey His commands. Their murmurings sounds then like disrespect towards God and distrust in Him, letting us understand that they seem to prefer the material wellbeing to the spiritual wellbeing, idols to the true God.

God has no intention of leaving His people without bread or meat: they would just need to trust Him and pray to Him humbly. They who only think of the physical bread instead are truly at risk of being left without spiritual food, so without internal joy.

It is the condition of true poverty in which we find ourselves today. We are not missing bread, nor we are missing the meat and not even so many unnecessary things, but we are left without the internal freedom and the ability to listen to and love our God and Father. This things we are missing become lack of joy, and above all lack of togetherness. We cannot really complain with God about the solitude which comes from this.

If only we were to listen to Him…there would be joy in our people, the joy of whom knows he had many brothers and that he is not alone.

The Gospel tells us about Jesus’ comment to the sign He Himself had given to the people who was looking for Him. First of all He expresses His surprise, because those who were looking for Him are only thinking of the bread to eat and they are looking for this from Him. They should instead worry about “the food that endures for eternal life”: it is the one He would like to give. He would like to give the latter to him because this one if the only “bread” which fully nourishes men, which makes then feel fulfilled in all different aspects of life. This bread then can be given to men only by Him, because it is His life: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst!”.

We, who have experience of a life with Jesus, know how He is a precious and true bread. Without Him, what would our days look like? Without Him, what would our relationships look like? Without Him, what would become of our society, but a place for superficiality, enmity, disorder and diffidence?

The apostle Saint Paul is begging the Christians to change life: we could say today, he begs them to change the bread they eat, to change their food. They are used to live like Pagans, but this is not fit for Christians. They who know Jesus and listen to Him, live in way different from anyone else, who follows the natural instincts. We can hear often: “everyone does so”, and with this sentence we justify many superficial behaviours; so, if everyone does so, we who believe in Jesus should not “do like everyone does”: in case, we should do like all Saints do!

We are different from everyone else, because we eat a different bread, because we feed our interior man, which is new, with a different bread. We are trying to be similar to God, because we know we are His children. This similarity is fully realised by Jesus, and so we can look at Him and we let Him in us through the door of love. He will help us, either through the brothers or through some interior inspiration from the Holy Spirit, to live from morning to evening in a “new” way, so differently from those who are without Jesus.

It will come apparent from how we spend our time, from how we meet people, with a smile, with kindness, from how we dress, from how we face fears and anxiety caused by the news nowadays. The joy of being fed by Jesus becomes interior certainty and availability to love every people we meet.

Thanks, Lord Jesus, living and true bread!