Thursday, May 5, 2022

5 May 2022 - praise the Paschal victim


No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,
and I will raise him on the last day.

Jesus had already emphasized that his Father would be the one at work drawing people to himself. Now he confirmed that there was no other way to come to him. It wasn't as though some people would figure it out on their own or be so spiritual as to recognize Jesus unaided. Everything depended on grace. This did not mean that the Father would draw some and not others. He would draw anyone who allowed herself to be drawn because he himself "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (see First Timothy 2:4).

Jesus wanted his listeners to attune themselves to the reality of the Father drawing them toward himself. He did this as a preface to a difficult teaching, a teaching that was very difficult, indeed impossible to receive on a human level (see John 6:63). If his hearers relied only on their own resources to understand what Jesus was going to reveal about the Eucharist they would not succeed, but would only be scandalized. 

Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
Not that anyone has seen the Father
except the one who is from God;
he has seen the Father.

Those who are teachable in this way, and who are obedient to what they have been taught, truly have all that is necessary for eternal life. The ancestors of the crowds ate manna in the desert and it gave them some strength to continue their journey. But it could not repair the fundamental problems present because in the absence of faith tending toward obedience. The manna helped in a temporary way as they journeyed to the promised land. But by its very help it revealed the limitations of all merely earthly blessings. The manna itself was no guarantee of obtaining the promised land. Even those who did manage to enter it eventually succumbed to death.

Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.

Jesus had bread to give that was not only bread for the journey, though it was that. It was bread that strengthened the obedience of faith for the pilgrimage through life. But even more than that, it was itself "medicine of immortality and antidote to death". It was as though Jesus himself was promising to provide access to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, to which access had long been barred, due to the sin of Adam and Eve. This was indeed something greater than Moses provided in the desert. And the gift was shockingly inseparable from the giver. 

I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my Flesh for the life of the world.

The bread that Jesus gave was somehow more than mere teaching of Torah, eating it was more than interiorizing the wisdom with which he spoke. It was somehow tied up in his very flesh, precisely because that flesh would be offered as a sacrifice for the sake of the life of the world. But partaking of a sacrifice was something greater than partaking of a teaching. For a sacrifice was meant to establish one thing: Communion.

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (see First Corinthians 10:16).

Paul made the leap for us if we didn't fully understand. The sacrifice of Jesus was a Passover sacrifice. The way we now participate in that sacrifice is precisely the way Jesus himself established at the Last Supper. We consume the lamb, but under the appearance of bread and wine.

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (see First Corinthians 5:8).

The fact that we "shall all be taught by God" should give us confidence in our mission of evangelization. This is because we ourselves are not responsible for making difficult teachings easily understood. The Father is already at work before we begin, preparing hearts for whatever meager contributions we ourselves can make.

Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said,
“Do you understand what you are reading?”

Although the Father himself was drawing this Ethiopian eunuch he still desired Philip to be the one through he was brought to conversion. At the center of this conversion was the truth about Jesus, the lamb of sacrifice, now risen from the tomb. We who know this truth do indeed have something to tell the world, something so good that it will cause those able to receive it to continue of their way rejoicing. Individuals like this eunuch, upon whom society looks down, those who feel they cannot find spiritual completion on their own, are probably passing by all around us day to day. Is it not selfish of us to withhold from them that for which their hearts long? Let us heed the Spirit as he himself offers us the directions we need.

Bless our God, you peoples,
loudly sound his praise;
He has given life to our souls,
and has not let our feet slip.




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