Nineteenth Sunday Cycle B
08/05/2015
August 9, 2015
The first reading is the story of the prophet Elijah when every thing seemed to go wrong. Elijah was on his way to Mount Horeb, where Moses had received the covenant, hoping to contact Yahweh .
In spite of Elijah's efforts to help the Israelites in following the covenant of God, he seemed to have failed.
So he, being so down, begins a journey through the desert and runs out of food. He prayed that he might die.
But the Lord miraculously fed him with bread and water and Elijah was able to continue his journey in the desert.
The Lord appeared to him and showed him that he was not a God of fire but a God of mercy, and then sent Elijah back to continue his work.
I am sure that most of us had had moments or maybe even days or weeks of spiritual depression when we are close to giving up.
When our crosses, our struggles and difficulties, our doubts and fears, seemed at times to be unbearable, we feel like asking God to take us out of our misery...that was exactly what Elijah did and he discovered how merciful God dealt with him, encouraging him to go on.
Let's pray that the next time we feel down and out, we will not ask God to take away all that bugs us, but ask God for the strength He gave to Elijah to bear the struggles and fears and continue going on.
Saint Paul wrote this letter to this community, encouraging them to live in peace and harmony and love of one another. We know that they had struggles and fears. They were to remember that they were children of God and therefore love, even in difficult times and with difficult people. That should dominate their lives.
That same call is for each of us because we too were called and chosen by God at our baptism to make the love of God present in today's world.
We are to make God's mercy and compassion present in the world just as we heard in the first reading.
We are called to forgive and to forget.
When we do not forget we have not really forgiven.
In this Gospel we hear that Jesus will become the bread of life.
God is there always to feed us, just as He did for Elijah.
Even difficult situations can, in a sense, be food for us. We may even make discoveries about ourselves that we do not really love as we should.
Even so, Jesus feeds us again and again and strengthens us with his very self in the Eucharist.
How difficult it was for the Jews to believe that Jesus was God that have come down from heaven and that He would give himself as the bread of life; that He would always be there to strengthen us for our journey in this life.
Will you let the Lord feed you???
Will you explore that difficult people and situations can be food from God???
Will you eat the bread of life in the Eucharist, experiencing forgiveness, compassion, and mercy so you can continue your journey in this life leading to eternal life?