Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; John 6:41-51

We know….

Dear friends, over the last three Sundays, we have been following the discourse on the Bread of Life. Jesus is explaining to the people his purpose in this world. But his listeners seem to be clearly perplexed by this speech, as we see in their reaction today. They seem to know Jesus well, at least his earthly existence! They seem to know his parents and his family. They know where he comes from, and most probably where he lives. They know everything about Jesus. They know what he does, they know and know and know. Well, even after two thousand years we, especially us Christians, claim to know about Jesus. We know about him, we have read about him, we know the stories about him, we proclaim about him but do we know Him? We tend to know “about” him a lot, but do we “know” Him? If we knew Him, then our way of life would have been very different. Let us look into it in this way: there was this man who married a woman from another culture. His mother was not so happy with his choice of bride, so she began to despise her. Whatever the newly-wed bride did, did not please her mother-in-law (Classic!). The daughter-in-law did not do anything wrong, but in the eyes of her mother-in-law she was not right. One day the mother-in-law had a fall and broke her ankle. Guess who had to help her? Her daughter-in-law, the same woman, who she had despised! Fortunately the eyes of her mother-in-law were opened to the beauty of this girl, and she realised how right she was all the while. It was just her prejudice made her treat her daughter-in-law badly. She thought she knew about this girl, knew about her culture, knew about all that she did, without realising she did not know her. If she had made an attempt to know her rather than about her, she might have treated her differently. Same applies to the listeners of Jesus and to us. We are called, by the virtue of our baptism, to know Jesus, to receive this Bread of Life. We are called to receive, through this Bread of Life, not just the Body and Blood, but the entire life of Jesus; his teaching, his healing, his friendship, his joy, his fellowship, his suffering, his death and his resurrection. It is, in modern terms, the whole package of the Life of Christ which enables us to live, as St Paul emphasises in today’s second reading, as “friends with one another, and kind, forgiving each other.” It is a challenge today dear friends, especially when we think “We know.” Only when we begin to shed the cover of “We know” and begin to truly learn and understand the person, his/her teaching, his/her way of life, then we can understand what that person is. So, dear friends, let us change our behaviour today and clear our prejudices towards each other so that we become truly what we are, the witnesses of the risen Christ, the Bread of Life, whose Body and Blood we have received.