Christ gives himself to us completely

THAT’S what we can gather from what Christ said about himself being the Bread of Life. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eats of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.” (Jn 6,51) 

 This gives us a great reason to be truly happy and confident in our life which will always be marked with all sorts of challenges, trials, difficulties, etc. Christ wants to give himself completely to us so he and us can be one as we should, since we are God’s image and likeness, despite our weaknesses, limitations and sins. 

 We need to process this truth of our faith thoroughly and try our best to receive Christ as the Bread of Life in Holy Communion as worthily and frequently as possible. We need to enliven our belief that in Christ we have everything, we have what is truly and ultimately needed by us. Many of our needs are passing, are of a temporal nature. It is Christ who we truly and ultimately need. 

 And he gives himself so completely to us as to make himself bread to be eaten by us. Although he is like air since we cannot truly live without him, he compares and makes himself bread, because unlike air, he as bread has to be deliberately sought. 

 This duty of seeking him is what we have to be more aware of. In the Gospel itself, we hear our Lord saying, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” (Mt 6,33) Not only that, we should also spread this most wonderful truth as widely as possible. 

 In the first reading of the Mass on Thursday of the Third Week of Easter (cfr. Acts 8,26-40), we are told about the Apostle Philip who preached about Christ to an Ethiopian eunuch, giving us an example of how eager we should be to make Christ known, loved and received by as many people as possible. 

 Christ as the Bread of Life means that he is truly and really with us even while he sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven. We are not left only with some picture or souvenir or symbol of his. And he accompanies us in our earthly sojourn, giving us the ultimate means we need to tackle whatever we may encounter in this life. 

 It’s a madness of love to which we have to correspond as best that we can. God himself gives us the grace in abundance to enable us to correspond to that love. We should not be scared of the tremendous prospect before us. But it’s up to us if we choose to love him or not. We should do everything to make use of what God is making available to us. 

 We are told that if we are generous with God, God will even be more generous with us, for he cannot be outdone in generosity. He assures us that whatever little we give to him will always yield us a hundredfold. It’s always good to keep this divine assurance in mind. 

 We have to learn to subordinate our earthly and temporal concerns and plans to the task of seeking Christ. We have to be wary of being influenced mainly if not solely by the standards of practicality, convenience and other worldly values. That’s our problem. God is often left behind in the play of our competing interests.

Despite contradictions, just do a lot of good

THAT’S what we can gather from the readings of the Mass on Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter. (Acts 8,1-8; Jn 6,35-40) Whatever negative things we can encounter along the way, the good, which is a matter of believing in Christ, if not, identifying ourselves with him, will always prevail, if not soon, then in the end. 

 It’s amazing to note that, as narrated in the first reading, the still-unconverted Paul was one of the fiercest persecutors of the early Christians. And yet, later on, he became a most intense apostle. 

 Miracles indeed can happen. Extraordinary change of heart can take place. We have to be careful not to make some rash judgments, or if that cannot be avoided as a spontaneous reaction, we should also be quick to rectify ourselves. We should just focus on doing a lot of good even if we are misunderstood or misjudged. 

 Yes, we just have to learn how, with Christ, we can overcome and drown evil with an abundance of good. This is a very intriguing part of our Christian faith. Not only should we love our enemies, as Christ taught us, but we also need to drown evil with an abundance of good. This was specifically articulated by St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans where he said: 

 “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” (Rom 12,17-20) 

 We have to try our best to erase whatever disbelief, doubt or skepticism we can have as we consider this teaching, since most likely, our first and spontaneous reaction to it would precisely be those conditions. We can ask, even if done only interiorly, “Is Christ really serious about this? Can this thing that Christ and St. Paul are telling us, possible, let alone, doable?” 

 When these reactions come to us, it is time to remind ourselves that we just have to follow our faith that definitely contains a lot of mysteries and things supernatural that we are not expected to understand fully. Like Our Lady and all the saints, we should just believe and do what we are told because it is Christ who said so, and because it is the Church that teaches us so. 

 That’s what faith is all about. By believing first, then we can start to understand things that are hard to explain or articulate in human terms. As they say, that’s how the ball bounces. We should not waste time trying to understand everything at once or at the beginning. Let’s be game enough to go through some kind of adventure that, no matter how the outcome would be, we know that God is in control of everything. 

 In the meantime, guided by our faith, let’s begin to develop the appropriate attitudes, practices, habits and virtues. We have to learn the intricacies of charity, like being patient, magnanimous, compassionate and understanding, merciful, always friendly with everyone even if not everyone is friendly with us. We should be willing to suffer for the others and to bear their burdens.

Staying on course

WE have to learn the art of how to stay on course in our life so that we do not get distracted, confused, entangled and lost. For this, we have to be clear about what the real and ultimate purpose of our life is, as well as know how to relate everything in our life—both the good things and the bad—to this purpose. 

 This, of course, would require us to undertake regular review and updating of our plans and strategies through practices like daily examinations of conscience, monthly days of recollection, annual retreats, etc. And even during the day, we should make a number of pit stops to see if we are still on course or are already getting deviated from the proper way. 

 We should always keep sharp our awareness that our life is actually something like a journey where we are expected to make daily progress on our way to our ultimate home or destination, which is to be with God in heaven. Yes, we have to realize deeply and abidingly that our life here on earth is also like a test God gives us, to see if what he wants us to be is also what we ourselves would like to be. 

 We are somehow reminded of this need of ours in the gospel of the Mass on Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter. (Jn 6,30-35) “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst,” Christ told a crowd of people, somehow telling us also that it should be Christ who should be the object of our real hunger and thirst. 

 Thus, we have to realize that we need to educate our biological or bodily functions, insofar as possible, such that they acquire a theological meaning and purpose and not just purely biological functions. 

 If we are truly serious in our Christian duty to make ourselves “another Christ” who is the pattern of our humanity and the redeemer of our damaged humanity, then the Christian transformation of our own selves should not only involve our spiritual faculties—our intelligence and will—but also our biological or bodily powers. 

 Thus, when we experience hunger for food or thirst for some drink, it should not just be food and drink that we should be interested in. We should not remain in the level of the material aspect of our life. Our hunger and thirst should also lead us to God. 

 For this to take place, we certainly need a kind of plan or program to keep our spiritual life alive and vibrant even as we go through the drudgery of the routine things or the excitement of new and challenging things. 

 We need to realize more seriously that more than feeding our body, we actually need to feed our soul which, being the principle of our life, is more important than the body. We are not just a biological being, like the plants and animals. We are human beings, persons with a rational nature and animated by a spiritual soul. 

 We need to discipline ourselves to follow a certain plan that would help us keep alive our awareness of our need to make Christ the constant focus and goal of our life. This would mean that we learn how to be in contemplative mode even as we immerse ourselves in our earthly affairs. 

 This is the way to properly stay on course in life!