Father Matthew Wiering Podcast

In today's Gospel, we have the clearest teaching of Jesus regarding marriage in the whole New Testament. This gives us the opportunity to reflect on the gift of marriage as well as on how the Church strives to live Jesus's teaching through its own laws regarding marriage.

Today's first reading and gospel tell similar stories. God is blessing those who are seen as "outsiders", and the result is suspicion and jealousy on the part of the disciples of both Moses and Jesus. How often we compare and judge and end up sowing division in our parishes, communities, and country! Division is exactly what the Enemy wants. May we strive for humility, understanding, and forgiveness so that we may have the unity that Christ desires for us.

In our Gospel today, the disciples are caught debating amongst themselves who in their group is the greatest. The irony of this worldly argument they were making is that they were doing this precisely as Jesus was again predicting that he would suffer and die at the hands of men. The Master would not achieve success in the eyes of the world but rather the opposite: He would be humiliated, but God would raise him up. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we too are all too easily caught up in this game of trying to achieve power, wealth, pleasure, and privilege. How can we be freed from our addiction to these worldly goals? Jesus gives us a remedy in today's Gospel.

In today's Gospel, Jesus addresses the disciples personally: "Who do you say that I am?" How would I answer this question? Do I make Jesus in my own image? Or do I allow Jesus to reveal himself to me as He is?

In today's Gospel we have one of a number of confrontations Jesus has with the Pharisees in the Gospel. Who were they? The Pharisees were a group within Judaism that were devoutly religious, traditional, and that took the Law with great seriousness. What was Jesus's problem with them? Their issue was not that they were pious or tried to follow the Law perfectly; rather, the problem was that they were so hyper focused on the minute details of the Law that they forget the most important things, like justice, mercy, and love. This is why Jesus called them "white-washed tombs" -- looking good on the outside but corrupted and rotten on the inside. May we too, in our religious pursuits, never lose sight of what is the most important!

Our readings providentially align this Sunday as we conclude John 6 and have Paul's teaching on marriage in Ephesians 5 as our 2nd reading. The last five weeks we have meditated on the Eucharist as Jesus speaks about it in the clearest way in the Gospels. The reading from St. Paul makes the point that the true marriage is that which obtains between Christ the Divine Bridegroom and the Church, his Bride. Where is this marriage consummated? In the same place where we consume Christ's Body and Blood. He gives his Body to his Bride, and as she receives this gift of her Husband, becomes One with Him. 

For this first Sunday back in our church following our restoration work, very providentially, our Gospel presents us with the most clear teaching in the whole New Testament on the Eucharist. In John 6, Jesus clearly teaches that the bread that comes down from heaven is his flesh and blood, true food and drink. The constant teaching of the Church is that, when the priest prays the words of consecration over the bread and wine, those elements receive a new substance, ceasing to be bread and wine (although their physical appearance does not change) and becoming the body and blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord and God.

In today's first reading we see the great, heroic, and courageous prophet Elijah collapsing from exhaustion and discouragement. He shares his desperation with God in a prayer. God answers by sending him food and drink, which gives him strength to walk another 40 days and nights. In today's Gospel Jesus says, 'I am the living bread come down from heaven.' When we have lost our strength and cannot go on, God provides Himself as the food and drink that we need to give us the strength that we ourselves do not have.

As we continue our journey through John 6, Jesus says something that strikes to the heart: "Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures to eternal life." How much time and energy we spend laboring for that which does not ultimately fulfill us. May we truly take to heart Jesus's words for us in the Gospel and living accordingly: "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me will have eternal life."

In John's Gospel there are always two levels at play: The literal level of the text and the theological level, the something "deeper" at work. In today's narrative, Jesus looks out at the crowd of people and sees that they are hungry (whether they themselves realize it or not). That is what is happening on the literal level. But on a spiritual level, we see how Jesus sees their hunger for God and how he will come to feed them, as the rest of John's sixth chapter plays out, with his very self.