Homily for the Week of August 16, 2009

Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2009

Prv 9:1-6 · Eph 5:15-20 · Jn 6:51-58

There is a an old saying that proclaims: There's no such thing a a free lunch. Today free lunch refers more than a meal and food. It can be applied to work, to school, to doing our very best. The notion of a free lunch began about 100 years ago when saloons in the United States advertised a Free Lunch wen a person bought just one drink. It was quite a deal. If you spent 15 cents on a drink, you'd get a free meal valued at a dollar. Calculating for inflation, if restaurants today would make a similar offer, we would spend about three bucks on a drink and get a meal valued at $20. Of course, if we decide to have an additional drink, or decide we like the food so much that we want to to come back for supper, our wallets would remind us that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

A free meal is a pretty enticing offer, and it is bound to draw lots of interest. Such is the case with Jesus in St. John's Gospel that we heard today and have been hearing in the past few weeks. Let me briefly give you a summary of these weeks. Working with only five barley loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus feeds the very hungry crowd of five thousand. Having been given that free lunch, the crowd comes back for more, at which time Jesus reminds them and and reminds us that he is the source of lasting nourishment and that he isthe true bread from heaven that gives life to us and to the world. The people then began to complain and murmur. The offer of such a free meal is too good to be true. How can this man gives us food that will make us enjoy life after death, they asked?

They were doubting what Jesus said -- maybe like much of us can doubt what he is saying. So today in our Gospel Jesus says it again: 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. Think of how this might have sounded. Jesus had not yet suffered his passion and death. He had not risen from the dead. No wonder that people quarrelled and asked, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Our Catholic faith gives us the answer to that question. Jesus gives us his flesh to eat in the Eucharist and Holy Communion. Because Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven, because he suffered, died, was buried and rose from the dead, we now are offered the abundance of life in the free meal of Holy Communion. But is there some fine print, some strings attached to our receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus? Maybe it is really true that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Without question, the gift of Jesus in Holy Communion is completely free. But what Jesus wants us to understand in His bread of life speech is that to receive Holy Communion is to receive his very life. Jesus repeats this theme today by saying: I am the living bread...whoever eats this bread will live forever...my flesh is for the life of the world...unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you do not have life within you...whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life..just at the living Father sent me and I have lifebecause of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me..whoever eats this bread will live forever. There is a lot of repetition to help us understand and believe something very basic. When we participate in this Mass and in Holy Communion we share in the life of Jesus. The very first Christians found their unity in the breaking of the bread.

But there something more to this life. Jesus is trying to convince us that to share in the life of Jesus, we must share his life with others. We can't do it alone. Maybe that is the fine print of today's Gospel. The free meal we receive is meant to be shared. If Jesus has life because of God the Father, and we have life because of Jesus, that life which is our free meal must be given to others through us. Jesus cannot give his life to the world today and tomorrow if we who partake of that life are unwilling to share it with others. TheIntercessory Prayers that we will pray in a few minutes remind us of those with whom we are to share our life such as world leaders, the expectant mothers and fathers, the elderly, those who lead us in singing, young persons preparing to begin or go back to college, those persons who are stressed, those who are sick and dying, and those who have died. The last prayer that I will offer before I bless you at the end of the Mass also expresses this: By becoming more like Jesus on earth, may we come to share in his glory in heaven.

By becoming more Jesus this week -- by offering forgiveness or extending a helping hand, by a simple smile or a gift of our time are ways in which others will have a better life through us. Our lives lived in love and service here on earth will lead us together to the eternal banquet of heaven - a free meal beyond anything we can imagine.