OMELIE / Omelie EN

08 ago 2021

08/08/2021 - 19 Sunday in O. T. - B

08/08/2021 - 19 Sunday in O. T. - B

Reading 1 1KINGS 19,4-8 Psalm 33/34 Reading 2 EPH 4,30 - 5,2 Gospel JN 6,41-51

Today's readings are talking about food, about eating and drinking: the nourishment of which they talk about, is not a nourishment which gives men only the satisfaction of being fed or having enjoyed a good meal, but has another reason, very precise. You eat and drink in order to be ready to take on a mission particularly important: the Angel who invites Elijah to get up an eat, invites him also to walk, to climb the mountain to reach and meet God. The bread and the water necessary for this journey are nourishment and the drink which the man can eat, but they are provided by God himself. So Elijah, with the strength of that food and drink “ walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb”. There he will meet God himself.

Elijah has found the bread as a gift in a moment of desperation: in fact he was avoiding being captured by the queen Jezebel, furious because he had humiliated her pagan prophets; for this reason she would have liked to kill him. Now he had no hope left, he thought his task as a prophet for the people had come to an end and therefore he had also failed the reason for his life: he could not see for himself any other solution but death. He thought that nobody wanted to listen to him, because nobody wanted to remain faithful to the God of the covenant: therefore he thought going on living was useless.

Instead, with that food, God made him understand that things were not really that way: he had still an important mission, so he had to remain obedient, always ready to listen and to share the Word, always forgetful of himself in order to let the people grasp the signs of the divine will. Elijah obeyed: he ate, drank and walked up to the new meeting with his God.

The bread which Elijah had, has a precedent, the one eaten and enjoyed by the whole people in Moses' times: the manna, found every day in the desert. That was also a bread given by God, bread which had helped the people keep alive and walk, a journey which seemed never-ending.

Jesus is saying this to the Jews, when he is trying to show himself to them, notwithstanding the hardness of their heart. The true bread which God wants to give men cannot be the manna: that was only a temporary gift, a prophetic gift as the one given to Elijah.

The ultimate gift is the bread of life, a food which enables to live and gives meaning and reasons to the man up to eternity. God is saving it for us, and he sends Jesus to give it to us. Nay, it is he, Jesus himself, the bread which, once obsorbed, is uniting as to God, is letting us experience the joy and the fullness of true life, not a temporary life, a lasting, eternal one. With him in the heart we can truly do what the apostle is advising us: “so be imitators of God, as beloved children”. By “eating” Jesus, will disappear from us “all bitterness, fury, malice”, and instead will appear the mercy, the forgiveness, the benevolence, all behaviours which show the similarity with God. Above all we will walk in charity, so maintaining a direction towords offering ourselves, and giving ourselves up in order to alleviate our brothers’ sufferings. This charity will be clearly present in us: in fact “bread that came down from heaven”, can only foster in us the love the Father has for all his creatures.

Maybe in our heart too are appearing some doubts, as it happened in the Jews’ minds: doubts and sadness, doubts about the “bread of life”, doubts about yourself, Jesus, the meaning and the truth of your words.

We will ask for answers not to those who have the same doubts, but we will ask them only to You, who love us and cannot cheat us. Your words, shone upon by the light of the Father’s love, will open our heart and our mind to welcome your life.

We will eat your bread, which is truly your flesh, the concreteness and truth of the life which has been given to you by the Father. We will become then one thing with you, and our life will be a blessing for many!