SUNDAY MASS
READINGS
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First reading
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Wisdom has built herself
a house,
she has
erected her seven pillars,
she has slaughtered her
beasts, prepared her wine,
she has laid
her table.
She has dispatched her
maidservants
and
proclaimed from the city’s heights:
‘Who is ignorant? Let
him step this way.’
To the fool
she says,
‘Come and eat my bread,
drink the
wine I have prepared!
Leave your folly and you
will live,
walk in the
ways of perception.’
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Psalm
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Psalm 33:2-3,10-15
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Second reading
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Be very careful about
the sort of lives you lead, like intelligent and not like senseless people.
This may be a wicked age, but you redeem it. And do not be thoughtless but recognize
what is the will of the Lord. Do not drug yourselves with wine, this is simply
dissipation; be filled with the Spirit. Sing the words and tunes of the psalms
and hymns when you are together, and go on singing and chanting to the Lord in
your hearts, so that always and everywhere you are giving thanks to God who is
our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Jn1:14,12
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The Word was made flesh
and lived among us:
to all who did accept
him
he gave power to become
children of God.
Alleluia!
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Or
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Jn6:56
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Alleluia, alleluia!
He who eats my flesh and
drinks my blood
lives in me, and I live
in him,
says the Lord.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Jesus said to the Jews:
‘I am the living bread
which has come down from heaven.
Anyone who eats this
bread will live for ever;
and the bread that I
shall give is my flesh,
for the life of the
world.’
Then the Jews started
arguing with one another: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ they
said. Jesus replied:
‘I tell you most
solemnly,
if you do not eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you will not have life
in you.
Anyone who does eat my
flesh and drink my blood
has eternal life,
and I shall raise him up
on the last day.
For my flesh is real
food
and my blood is real
drink.
He who eats my flesh and
drinks my blood
lives in me
and I live in him.
As I, who am sent by the
living Father,
myself draw life from
the Father,
so whoever eats me will
draw life from me.
This is the bread come
down from heaven;
not like the bread our
ancestors ate:
they are dead,
but anyone who eats this
bread will live for ever.’
PATRISTIC
COMMENTARIES
48. I am that bread of life.
49. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may
eat thereof, and not die.
51a. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man
eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.
AUG. Our Lord wishes to reveal what He is; Verily,
verily, I say to you, He that believes in Me, has everlasting life. As if He
said; He that believes in Me has Me: but what is it to have Me? It is to have
eternal life: for the Word which was in the beginning with God is life eternal,
and the life was the light of men. Life underwent death, that life might kill
death. CHRYS. The multitude being urgent for bodily food, and
reminding Him of that which was given to their fathers, He tells them that the
manna was only a type of that spiritual food which was now to be tasted in
reality, I am that bread of life. CHRYS. He calls Himself the bread
of life, because He constitutes one life, both present, and to come. AUG.
And because they had taunted Him with the manna, He adds, Your fathers did eat
manna in the wilderness, and are dead. Your fathers they are, for you are like
them; murmuring sons of murmuring fathers. For in nothing did that people
offend God more, than by their murmurs against Him. And therefore are they
dead, because what they saw they believed, what they did not see they believed
not, nor understood. CHRYS. The addition, In the wilderness, is not
put in without meaning, but to remind them how short a time the manna lasted;
only till the entrance into the land of promise. And because the bread which
Christ gave seemed inferior to the manna, in that the latter had come down from
heaven, while the former was of this world, He adds, This is the bread which
comes down from heaven. AUG. This was the bread the manna typified,
this was the bread the altar typified. Both the one and the other were
sacraments, differing in symbol, alike in the thing signified. Hear the
Apostle, They did all eat the same spiritual meat. CHRYS. He then
gives them a strong reason for believing that they were given for higher
privileges than their fathers. Their fathers eat manna and were dead; whereas
of this bread He says, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. The difference
of the two is evident from the difference of their ends. By bread here is meant
wholesome doctrine, and faith in Him, or His body: for these are the
preservatives of the soul. AUG. But are we, who eat the bread that
comes down from heaven, relieved from death? From visible and carnal death, the
death of the body, we are not: we shall die, even as they died. But from
spiritual death which their fathers suffered, we are delivered. Moses and many,
acceptable of God, eat the manna, and died not, because they understood that
visible food in a spiritual sense, spiritually tasted it, and were spiritually
filled with it. And we too at this day receive the visible food; but the
Sacrament is one thing, the virtue of the Sacrament another. Many a one
receives from the Altar, and perishes in receiving; eating and drinking his own
damnation, as said the Apostle. To eat then the heavenly bread spiritually, is
to bring to the Altar an innocent mind. Sins, though they be daily, are not
deadly. Before you go to the Altar, attend to the prayer you repeat: Forgive us
our debts, as we forgive our debtors. If you forgive, you are forgiven:
approach confidently; it is bread, not poison. None then that eat of this
bread, shall die. But we speak of the virtue of the Sacrament, not the visible
Sacrament itself; of the inward, not of the outward eater. ALCUIN.
Therefore I say, He that eats this bread, dies not: I am the living bread which
came down from heaven. THEOPHYL. By becoming incarnate, He was not
then first man, and afterwards assumed Divinity, as Nestorius fables. AUG.
The manna too came down from heaven; but the manna was shadow, this is
substance. ALCUIN. But men must be quickened by my life: If any man eat
of this bread, he shall live, not only now by faith and righteousness, but forever.
51b. - And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world.
AUG. Our Lord pronounces Himself to be bread, not
only in respect of that Divinity, which feeds all things, but also in respect
of that human nature, which was assumed by the Word of God: And the bread, He
says, that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world. BEDE. This bread our Lord then gave, when He delivered to
His disciple the mystery of His Body and Blood, and offered Himself to God the
Father on the altar of the cross. For the life of the world, i.e. not for the
elements, but for mankind, who are called the world. THEOPHYL.
Which I shall give: this shows His power; for it shows that He was not
crucified as a servant, in subjection to the Father, but of his own accord; for
though He is said to have been given up by the Father, yet He delivered Himself
up also. And observe, the bread which is taken by us in the mysteries, is not
only the sign of Christ’s flesh, but is itself the very flesh of Christ; for He
does not say, The bread which I will give, is the sign of My flesh, but, is My
flesh. The bread is by a mystical benediction conveyed in unutterable words,
and by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, transmuted into the flesh of Christ.
But why see we not the flesh? Because, if the flesh were seen, it would revolt
us to such a degree, that we should be unable to partake of it. And therefore
in condescension to our infirmity, the mystical food is given to us under an
appearance suitable to our minds. He gave His flesh for the life of the world,
in that, by dying, He destroyed death. By the life of the world too, I
understand the resurrection; our Lord’s death having brought about the
resurrection of the whole human race. It may mean too the sanctified,
beatified, spiritual life; for though all have not attained to this life, yet
our Lord gave Himself for the world, and, as far as lies in Him, the whole
world is sanctified. AUG. But when does flesh receive the bread
which He calls His flesh? The faithful know and receive the Body of Christ, if
they labor to be the body of Christ. And they become the body of Christ, if
they study to live by the Spirit of Christ: for that which lives by the Spirit
of Christ, is the body of Christ. This bread the Apostle sets forth, where he
says, We being many are one body. O sacrament of mercy, O sign of unity, O bond
of love! Whoso wishes to live, let him draw nigh, believe, be incorporated,
that he may be quickened.
52. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this
man give us his flesh to eat?
53. Then Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, Except
you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in
you.
54. Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life; and
I will raise him up at the last day.
AUG. The Jews not understanding what was the bread
of A peace, strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us His flesh
to eat? Whereas they who eat the bread strive not among themselves, for God
makes them to dwell together in unity. BEDE. The Jews thought that
our Lord would divide His flesh into pieces, and give it them to eat: and so
mistaking Him, strove. CHRYS. AS they thought it impossible that He
should do as He said, i.e. give them His flesh to eat, He shows them that it
was not only possible, but necessary: Then said Jesus to them, Verily, verily,
I say to you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood,
you have no life in you. AUG. As if He said, The sense in which
that bread is eaten, and the mode of eating it, you know not; but, Except you
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in
you. BEDE And that this might not seem addressed to them
alone, He declares universally, Whoso eats My flash, and drinks My blood, has
eternal life. AUG. And that they might not understand him to speak
of this life, and make that an occasion of striving, He adds, has eternal life.
This then he has not who eats not that flesh, nor drinks that blood. The
temporal life men may have without Him, the eternal they cannot. This is not
true of material food. If we do not take that indeed, we shall not live,
neither do we live, if we take it: for either disease, or old age, or some
accident kills us after all. Whereas this meat and drink, i.e. the Body and
Blood of Christ, is such that he that takes it not has not life, and he that
takes it has life, even life eternal. THEOPHYL. For it is not the
flesh of man simply, but of God: and it makes man divine, by inebriating him,
as it were, with divinity. AUG. There are some who promise men
deliverance from eternal punishment, if they are washed in Baptism and partake
of Christ’s Body, whatever lives they live. The Apostle however contradicts
them, where he says, The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these;
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft,
hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings,
murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like; of the which I tell you before,
as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God. Let us examine what is meant here. He who is in the
unity of His body, (i.e. one of the Christian members,) the Sacrament of which
body the faithful receive when they communicate at the Altar; he is truly said
to eat the body, and drink the blood of Christ. And heretics and schismatics,
who are cut off from the unity of the body, may receive the same Sacrament; but
it does not profit them, may, rather is hurtful, as tending to make their judgment
heavier, or their forgiveness later. Nor ought they to feel secure in their
abandoned and damnable ways, who, by the iniquity of their lives, desert
righteousness, i.e. Christ; either by fornication, or other sins of the like
kind. Such are not to be said to eat the body of Christ; forasmuch as they are
not to be counted among the members of Christ For, not to mention other things,
men cannot be members of Christ, and at the same time members of an
harlot. AUG. By this meat and drink then, He would have us
understand the society of His body, and His members, which is the Church, in
the predestined, and called, and justified, and glorified saints and believers.
The Sacrament whereof, i.e. Of the unity of the body and blood of Christ, is
administered, in some places daily, in others on such and such days from the
Lord’s Table: and from the Lord’s Table it is received by some to their
salvation, by others to their condemnation. But the thing itself of which this
is the Sacrament, is for our salvation to everyone who partakes of it, for
condemnation to none. To prevent us supposing that those who, by virtue of that
meat and drink, were promised eternal life, would not die in the body, Ho adds,
And I will raise him up at the last day; i.e. to that eternal life, a spiritual
rest, which the spirits of the Saints enter into. But neither shall the body be
defrauded of eternal life, but shall be endowed With it at the resurrection of
the dead in the last day.
55. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I
in him.
57. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so
he that eats me, even he shall live by me.
58. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your
fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eats of this bread shall live for
ever.
59. These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in
Capernaum.
BEDE. He had said above, Whoso eats My flesh and
drinks My blood, has eternal life: and now to show the great difference between
bodily meat and drink, and the spiritual mystery of His body and blood, Ho
adds, For My flesh its meat indeed, and My blood its drink indeed. CHRYS.
i.e. this is no enigma, or parable, but you must really eat the body of Christ;
or He means to say that the true meat was He who saved the soul. AUG.
Or thus: Whereas men desire meat and drink to satisfy hunger and thirst, this
effect is only really produced by that meat and drink, which makes the
receivers of it immortal and incorruptible; i.e. the society of Saints, where
is peace and unity, full and perfect. On which account our Lord has chosen for
the types of His body and blood, things which become one out of many. Bread is
a quantity of grains united into one mass, wine a quantity of grapes squeezed
together. Then He explains what it is to eat His body and drink His blood: He
that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I in him. So then to
partake of that meat and that drink, is to dwell in Christ and Christ in you.
He that dwells not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwells not, neither eats His
flesh, nor drinks His blood: but rather eats and drinks the sacrament of it to
his own damnation. CHRYS. Or, having given a promise of eternal
life to those that eat Him, He says this to confirm it: He that eats My flesh,
and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I in him. AUG. As for those,
as indeed there are many, who either eat that flesh and drink that blood hypocritically,
or, who having eaten, become apostates, do they dwell in Christ, and Christ in
them? Nay, but there is a certain mode of eating that flesh, and drinking that
blood, in the which he that eats and drinks, dwells in Christ, and Christ in
him. AUG. That is to say, such an one eats the body and drinks the
blood of Christ not in the sacramental sense, but in reality. CHRYS.
And because I live, it is manifest that he will live also: As the living Father
has sent Me, and I live by the Father, even so he that eats Me, even he shall
live by Me. As if He said, As the Father lives, so do I live; adding, lest you
should think Him unbegotten, By the Father, meaning that He has His source in
the Father. He that eats Me, even he shall live by Me; the life here meant is
not life simply, but the justified life: for even unbelievers live, who never
eat of that flesh at all. Nor is it of the general resurrection He speaks, (for
all will rise again,) but of the resurrection to glory, and reward. AUG.
He said not, As I eat the Father, and live by the Father, so he that eats Me,
even he shall live by Me. For the Son does not grow better by partaking of the
Father, as we do by partaking of the Son, i.e. of His one body and blood, which
this eating and drinking signifies. So that His saying, I live by the Father,
because He is from Him, must not be understood as detracting from His equality.
Nor do the words, Even he that eats Me, the same shall live by Me, give us the
equality that He has. He does not equalize, but only mediates between God and
man. If, however, we understand the words, I live by the Father, in the sense
of those below, My Father is greater than I, then it is as if He said, That I
live by the Father, i.e. refer my life to Him, as my superior, my humiliation
in my incarnation is the cause; but He who lives by Me, lives by Me by virtue
of partaking of My flesh. HILARY. Of the truth then of the body and
blood of Christ, no room for doubting remains: for, by the declaration of our
Lord Himself, and by the teaching of our own faith, the flesh is really flesh,
and the blood really blood. This then is our principle of life. While we are in
the flesh, Christ dwells in us by His flesh. And we shall live by Him,
according as He lives. If then we live naturally by partaking of Him according
to the flesh, He also lives naturally by the indwelling of the Father according
to the Spirit. His birth did not give Him an alien or different nature from the
Father. AUG. That we who cannot obtain eternal life of ourselves,
might live by the eating that bread, He descended from heaven: This is the
bread which comes down from heaven. HILARY. He calls Himself the
bread, because He is the origin of His own body. And lest it should be thought
that the virtue and nature of the Word had given way to the flesh, He calls the
bread His flesh, that, inasmuch as the bread came down from heaven, it might be
seen that His body was not of human conception, but a heavenly body. To say
that the bread is His own, is to declare that the Word assumed His body
Himself. THEOPHYL. For we do not eat God simply, God being
impalpable and incorporeal; nor again, the flesh of man simply, which would not
profit us. But God having taken flesh into union with Himself; that flesh is
quickening. Not that it has changed its own for the Divine nature; but, just as
heated iron remains iron, with the action of the heat in it; so our Lord’s
flesh is quickening, as being the flesh of the Word of God. BEDE.
And to show the wide interval between the shadow and the light, the type and
the reality, He adds, Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that
eats of this bread shall live forever. AUG. The death here meant is
death eternal. For even those who eat Christ are subject to natural death; but
they live forever, because Christ is everlasting life. CHRYS. For
if it was possible without harvest or fruit of the earth, or any such thing, to
preserve the lives of the Israelites of old for forty years, much more will He
be able to do this with that spiritual food, of which the manna is the type. He
knew how precious a thing life was in men’s eyes, and therefore repeats His
promise of life often; just as the Old Testament had done; only that it only
offered length of life, He life without end. This promise was an abolition of
that sentence of death, which sin had brought upon us. These things said He in
the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum; where many displays of His power took
place. He taught in the synagogue and in the temple, with the view of
attracting the multitude, and as a sign that He was not acting in opposition to
the Father. BEDE. Mystically, Capernaum, which means beautiful
town, stands for the world: the synagogue, for the Jewish people. The meaning
is, that our Lord has, by the mystery of the incarnation, manifested Himself to
tile world, and also taught the Jewish people His doctrines.
PERSONAL
REFLECTIONS
*
Sa mga kadakul na minamaw-ot niato sa buhay, an mabuhay sagkod pa man an saro
sa satuyang mga pinakamamaw-ot. Puede
ngani sabihon na ini amo an satuyang pinakakamamaw-ot, may pagtubod man sa Dios
o wara, may paglaom man o wara. Hilingon
ta lamang an historia universal asin an satuyang mga personal na buhay. Bakong an kamatayan satong
pigkakahadlokan. Bakong an paggurang asin
paghelang satong iniiwasa para sa satuya siring man para sa satong mga
namomot-an sa buhay. Bakong yaon sa
satuyang mga paghingoha an marhay an satuyang lawas asin kamugtakan sa
buhay. An sciencia kadakul-dakul na experimento an piggibo para mapahalawig
an buhay kan tawo hale sa tradicional na mga medicina paduman sa DNA. May mga food supplements kita na
pigtotomar, may mga health tips asin dietary regimens kita na pigsusunod. Kun ano man an makakapahalawig sa buhay ta
iyo an patok sa gabos.
*
Bako ta lang gusto mabuhay sagkod pa man, gusto ta man mabuhay ki marhay. Mabuhay ki halawig asin buhay na halawig asin
marhay an maw-ot naton sa satuya asin sa satuyang mga namomot-an. Bakong sa kadahilanan na ini naghihinguha
kita sa pagrabaho asin paglapigot sa aro-aldaw.
Bakong dahil digdi kita nagsasakripisyo digdi sa satuyang banwa o kun
saen pa man na lugar sa mundo para may maitao sa satuyang sadiri asin sa
satuyang mga namomot-an an buhay na marhay.
Bakong dahil sa kamaw-otan na ini handa kita sa ma anano pa man na mga
kasakita na binabato sa satuya kan buhay.
* Gabos ini aram asin
naiintindihan kan Kagurangnan Jesu Cristo. Siya baga Dios na nani-tawo kaya an satuyang
mga situaciones, personales man o sociales, Saiyang gamay asin tunay na
nasasabotan ta bako Siyang iba sa satuya.
Tunay niato Siyang tugang bako lang dahil saro lang an satuyang Ama sa
langit kun di dahil nani-laman man Siya, parejo nanggad naton gabos. Kaya baga sa capítulo 6 kan Evangelio ni Juan
iyo ini an saiyang mensaje, sabi Niya sa versículo 51: “Ako an buhay na tinapay na naghilig hale sa langit. Mabubuhay sagkod pa man an magkakan kaini. An
tinapay na itatao ko nganing mabuhay an kinaban iyo an sakong hawak.”
*
Dai kitang magigibo asin mahihingoha hale sa satuyang kusog sana an makakatao
satuya kan buhay na daing kasagkoran. Ni
an satuyang sciencia, na frutas kan satuyang intelecto na marhay asin halangkaw
an naabot, makakatao kan satuyang minamaw-ot.
Imperfecto man giraray yan, kulang pa man gihapon an saiyang nakukua para
sato. Wara digdi sa kinab-an poder, o
kapangyarihan, o kadunungan, o cuarta, o ano pa man an makakatao satuya kan
buhay na daing kasagkoran. Maski anano
an satuyang gibohon an laman nalalapa, an panit nagkukulubot, an buhok
nagpuputi. Yan an satuyang naturaleza. Sa
abo kita naghale, sa abo kita mabalik.
* Siring man baga para sa
buhay na marhay. Puedeng puede niato
maabot an karangyaan asin karahayan sa buhay maski ngani sa bakong marhay na
paagi, pero pagdatong kan panahon an cuarta nauubos, an suerte nawawara, asin
an satuyang paglayog naguuli sa paghugpa.
An buhay gulong, sa taas kita una, sa baba naman kita minasunod.
* Kaya ngonyan na
ika-veinte na Domingo kan Tiempo Ordinario iyo ini an mensaje kan Kagurangnan:
magduman kita saiya dahil makakamit niato an buhay na marhay na daing
kasagkoran. Asin itinutukdo Niya sa
satuya kun papan-o: kakanon niato an Saiyang hawak, hawak na nani-tinapay sa
Banal na Comunión. Mga tugang, padagos
an satuyang pagsimba cada Domingo.
Padagos an satuyang paghingoha na gibohon an tama asin likayan an sala
tanganing magkanigo kita na kakanon an Tinapay nin Buhay. Padagos an satuyang paghagad ki kapatawaran
sa Saiya sa pakiolay sa Kaniya na personal sa pagpangadyi asin sa Pagkumpisal
kan satuyang kasal-an tanganing malinig kita asin tunay na ma-resibe niato an
gracia sa Pagkomunyon. Sigue pa man
gihapon kita sa paghingoha sa buhay, tama, pero bako niatong kalimutan an bagay
na pinaka-importante na mas dapat niatong paghingohaan. Sigue pa man gihapon kita sa paghigos sa
ibabaw nin daga pero panoan ta an mga kakulangan kaini sa pagresibe sa
Kagurangnan. Sigue pa man gihapon kita
sa pag-trabajo asin paglapigot ta diri man kita aayudahan kan Kagurangnan kun
nagpapabaya kita, pero danay tang dumdumun na Siya an satuyang prioridad ta
nasa Saiya an buhay na daing kasagkoran.
Amen.
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