During my childhood in Vietnam, it was a common experience for many people, and it is still even up to this day around the world, that I went to bed with an empty and very hungry tummy. When I just landed at a refugee camp, feeling hungry and exhausted, I was given a bowl of fresh and warm rice. How delicious was its smell! I wished I could stay in this place for ever! To be filled, satisfied and never had to be hungry again. But not long after that, I realised that I was a well fed imprisoned refugee, surrounded by layers of fence. There is more to one’s life that just bread and butter. Freedom!
Sometimes we are like the Israelites, we prefer to go back and stay in the land of slavery where we would rather be well fed slaves than to be free people. We want to “sit down to pans of meat and … eat bread to our heart’s content”; we may complain in times of trial, like the Israelites to Moses and Aaron, “you have brought us to this wilderness to starve this whole company to death”. (Ex 16: 2-4)
The gospel of this Sunday is the continuation from last Sunday’s. After being fed by Jesus, people were after Him to make him King, because He could satisfy their physical tummies. They looked for him because they wanted only ‘bread and butter’ and nothing else. But Jesus challenged them to raise their minds and hearts beyond their physical needs, “do not work for the food that cannot last, but work for the food that endures to eternal life.” (Jn 6: 25-26). To transcend their minds and hearts from the corruptible mana to the lasting bread. He himself is that bread that they should look for, “I am the bread of life”.
What are we hungry for today? What can satisfy our heart to its content? Is it the size of our bank account and the materials that we can accumulate in this life? Or is it the name and fame that we are after? We know well that these are passing and that we cannot take any of these with us at the end of our earthly journey. St Paul in the second reading warns us not to be corrupted by these kinds of illusory desires (Eph 4:17,20-24).
In the opening prayer of last Sunday’s Mass, we prayed to the God “without whom nothing has firm foundation, nothing is holy” and we asked Him to guide us to use the things that are passing in such a way that we may hold fast to the things that endure. Only God and His gospel values are lasting.
There is more to us than just a bundle of physical or biological make-up. We are spiritual beings who are capable of being transcendental. Paul continues to urge us to be constantly “renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of truth”.
May we be like the people in the gospel crying out to Jesus, “Sir, give us that bread always.” The bread that once we have eaten, will satisfy us. And then we will hear our Lord says to us, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst.” (Jn 6:35).
May we learn to love the Eucharist.
18th Sunday, 2nd August 2015.