TWF

9. TWF • Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

10. Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of Your faithful and kindle in them the fire of Your Love. v. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. r. And You shall renew the face of the earth. Let us pray: O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit has taught the hearts of the faithful, grant us by the help of the same Holy Spirit to be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation through Christ our Lord. Amen.

11. Gospel  Jn 6:24-35 When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" Jesus answered them and said, "Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal."

12. So they said to him, "What can we do to accomplish the works of God?" Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent." So they said to him, "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.? So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

13. So they said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."

14. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.”

15. miracle hunger • can the master be far from the disciple? • when did he arrive? how did he arrive? • they filled their bellies but they have not understood the loaves as signs of God’s care for people

16. They are well acquainted with their physical hunger and deeply attached to filling it. • But they are less acquainted with their spiritual hunger and unsure how to fill it. • Jesus tells them that he himself is the one who feeds them with eternal food. • The Father has approved this path and this process of entering into the eternal order.

17. So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

18. the works vs The Work • the Law enjoins them to imitate God, to do as God does • but this is only possible if people are co-acting with God • they can only do the works (the many) if they are united to The Work (the one)

19. Jesus is the Work of God. • Therefore, to do the works of God they must join the Work of God, to enter into the identity and mission of “him whom he has sent.” • The external works have to connect with inner consciousness. • Law (outer) and spirit (inner) must form a partnership.

20. So they said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

21. the Law and the manna • they know the Law is from God, for Moses, the lawgiver, provided manna in the wilderness • where bread was not available by natural means, it was provided by supernatural means, that is, bread from heaven • this miracle means the Law which Moses gave is from God

22. The bread from heaven in the past was pieces of manna scattered on the earth. It was physical food, but even as physical food it was not meant to validate Moses. It was meant to reveal God. Jesus’ Father is the ultimate giver of the true bread from heaven, and he is giving it at all times. This true bread from heaven is spiritual life for the world. It is wider than the history and the people of Israel. It connects alienated Creation to its Source. This bread is its own reality.

23. So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

24. “Sir, give us this bread always.” • Jesus himself is the Bread of Life • whoever comes to him will enter into a relationship with the eternal and so they will never feel spiritual hunger or spiritual thirst

25. four attempts to adjust the consciousness of the crowd • “When did you arrive?” • “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” • “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?” • “Sir, give us this bread always.”

26. Conventional religious consciousness stops short of considering the deeds as signs that reveal the deeper world of Spirit. In a similar way, those persons with this consciousness are concerned about actions that can be seen but not about the interiority of the actor, the place that enables the actions to be performed. Their consciousness is locked into the visible, material, and temporal. The invisible, spiritual, and eternal elude them.

27. four attempts to adjust the consciousness of the crowd • “When did you arrive?” • “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” • “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?” • “Sir, give us this bread always.”