20th Sunday in Ordinary Time  B  (18 August 2024)

1. Like last Sunday, also today St Paul, in the second reading, addresses some recommendations to the Ephesians, which we can summarise in four points: "do not live like fools, but be wise"; "make good use of the time because our days are evil"; "do not get drunk with wine that makes you lose control of yourself, but be filled with the Spirit"; "give thanks continually for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ". To live as fools or as wise is the challenge for every human being. The effort of those who want to follow Jesus is to feed on his wisdom, which is presented as a path, a way of conceiving life and behaving not in the manner of this world but according to the vocation of children of light, immersed in divine love. We are going through, St Paul observes, not easy times among people who easily become selfish, enemies of good and lovers of pleasures rather than devoting themselves to seeking the joy of God (cf. 2 Tim 3:1-7). True wisdom consists in accepting God's will every day, filling oneself not with wine that gets drunk, that is, with that which dulls the conscience and weakens the will, but with the Holy Spirit that enables one to live in praise, adoration and thanksgiving. Thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit, all human existence is converted into a true liturgy because it is he who introduces us into the wisdom of Christ, the One who gives life so that the world may have life.

2. St Paul's reference to divine wisdom, and this wisdom is also spoken of in the first reading from the book of Proverbs, prepares us to meditate on today's page of John's gospel, which continues the account of the catechesis on the Eucharist that Jesus gave in the synagogue of Capernaum. Today he resumes with this statement: "The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world (v.51). Jesus is not talking about a cannibal, about anthropophagy; and his listeners are not surprised because they remotely suspect that this is absurd language. In the Jewish world, people were accustomed to using the metaphor of eating and drinking, and they knew that there are hunger and thirsts more urgent and demanding than those of the stomach. There are men who can fill their stomachs at will, but suffer from a lack of love, in the same way the human heart far from God ends up dying of spiritual starvation. Wisdom for the people of Israel is always a choice: between life or death, between good or evil, between joy or mortal sadness, between God or man.  God alone, knowing this, can give man true wisdom that does not disappoint.  In the book of Genesis, the account of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and of Adam and Eve's sin is a metaphor to say that the knowledge of what makes man truly free and happy or enslaved and unhappy is accessible only to God and man alone with his intelligence/will can never construct it (Genesis 2: 8 - 3: 24). Man then has no choice but to listen obediently to God, who wanted to give wisdom as a gift to his people, and Israel is proud to be the repository of divine wisdom before the whole world. Again in the first reading from the book of Proverbs, it is said that divine wisdom has pitched her tent on the holy mountain in Jerusalem and "she has built her house, she has carved her seven pillars. He has killed his cattle, prepared his wine and set his table, and sent his handmaidens to proclaim to the unlearned and the senseless: 'come and eat bread and drink wine that I have prepared for you'. One does not struggle to understand the connection between the gift of Wisdom and the gift of the Eucharist, everything and always in the logic of the gift.

3. The listeners in Capernaum were familiar with these Old Testament texts and were therefore astonished when Jesus spoke of himself as the bread of life and asked themselves: but for whom does this man whom we know so well take himself? They understood that Jesus was presenting himself as the Messiah they were waiting for and this was unacceptable to them. In his discourse, Jesus repeatedly insisted that he was God's Envoy to give life to the world, facing incomprehension, critical murmuring and often decisive rejection from his listeners. A rejection of his identity that Saint John already affirms in the prologue of his gospel, when he writes that the Word "came among his own and his own did not receive him" (John 1:11).  Indeed, few are able to enter gradually into the mystery of God and it is those who humbly listen to Jesus to the end instead of immediately beginning to argue. This is also true for us: only wrapped in divine wisdom that is foolishness for men can we approach the mystery. Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew among Jews, spoke in the language of the time, used the same images and symbols. Those who listened to him could understand him at least for the fact that he was using the same vocabulary and shared the same way of reasoning. Instead, the majority decided not to follow him and this happened at many points in his life.  Since there is no account in the Fourth Gospel, as there is in the Synoptics, of the institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday after the Last Supper, this discourse constitutes a first major catechesis on the Eucharistic mystery. When John writes the gospel, the first Christian communities had already been accustomed for several years to feed on the body and blood of Christ every Sunday and were trying to understand this mystery. But more than trying to understand - Jesus says - it is necessary with humility to let oneself be infected by the mystery.  In the heart of the Eucharistic prayer even the celebrant proclaims it: this is the 'Mystery of Faith'. To enter into the mystery of the Eucharist is beyond our capacity, and so it is necessary to allow ourselves to be enlightened and led by God. And Jesus further explains: "As the Father who lives has sent me and I live for the Father, so also he who eats me will live for me". Living his own life: this is God's gift to mankind in the Eucharist. Jesus had proclaimed that his word is nourishment for the world, but here he goes much further, he speaks of flesh to be eaten that becomes food to be assimilated not only for ourselves but for the good of humanity: "The bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world". It refers to his passion and death and resurrection as the entire New Testament makes us realise that the world has found life again thanks to the gift of Christ's glorious cross, that is, victorious over death. Let us not be surprised if we struggle to understand with our intelligence because the only way forward is not to try to understand, but to allow ourselves to be drawn by God. To those who murmured among themselves when Jesus had said that he was the bread that came down from heaven, Jesus had replied: "It is written in the prophets: And all shall be taught of God. So everything is difficult for man if God himself does not come to instruct us. When we listen to the teachings of the Father we meet Jesus because 'no one comes to me', he insists, 'unless my Father draws him'. In the Eucharist we are drawn: it is the Most Holy Trinity who divinely draws us to himself. Yes, in the Eucharistic celebration, we enter into the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Before, during and after we remain in adoration, allowing ourselves to be instructed and transformed by God Most Holy Trinity and Infinite Mercy. This is the example of the saints, who draw from immersion in the mystery of the Holy Trinity the strength to love all in truth. And this is a gift offered to all. During his short life, Charles Acutis, a teenager already blessed and soon to be proclaimed a saint lived on the Eucharist. He said: "The Eucharist is my highway to Paradise", and "if we stand before the sun, we become brown, but when we stand before Jesus in the Eucharist, we become holy".

+Giovanni D'Ercole