“… whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
Why are there days during Eastertide when the Gospel Reading narrates events occurring before the Resurrection of Jesus? One reason is practical. Within the four Gospel accounts, the narratives taking place following the Resurrection are relatively few. Also, they are somewhat repetitive from one Gospel account to another.
There’s also a theological reason for the Church proclaiming “pre-Resurrection” narratives during the Season of Easter. This reason is clear in the narrative of the disciples on the way to Emmaus. On that way, Christ runs through all the Scriptures that refer to Him and His suffering, death and Resurrection. The meaning of the Old Testament, and of Jesus’ life before His Resurrection, are seen in a new light once Christ has risen from the dead.
So it is with today’s Gospel passage. It takes place before the Last Supper, immediately after Jesus’ washing of the apostles’ feet. In the light of Jesus’ crucifixion and death, this simple act of foot washing takes on greater meaning. So do Jesus’ words here: “no slave is greater than his master”. What do we learn about our own place as Jesus’ disciples—servants of His Father—if the Master took up for us, and died upon, the cross that we deserved?
When we recite the Creed on Sundays and solemnities, we profess that God the Son is “eternally begotten of the Father.” This statement is a profession of the divinity of Jesus Christ, which relates to Jesus’ assertion in yesterday’s Gospel passage that “The Father and I are one.”
Meditate on this truth that the Father and the Son are one in light of another phrase from the Creed: that is, that the Son is “Light from Light” . How is God light? This is a metaphor, of course, but a very pregnant one. Jesus proclaims in today’s Gospel passage, “I came into the world as light….” He is talking, of course, about His mission in this world having the same effect as light.
Jesus’ earthly mission is continued through time by His Mystical Body, the Church. Within the Church, your vocation bears—in some way—a share in the meaning of this metaphor: “that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness.” We might reflect on today’s Gospel in conjunction with Jesus’ words during the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the light of the world.” Our mission as the light of the world leads others, and ourselves, into the light of the Beatific Vision.
Today’s Gospel passage ends with an odd turn “off course”. As a whole, the passage seems to be about Jesus dispelling the Jews’ suspense by identifying Himself as the Good Shepherd. He then describes His relationship with His sheep, and the fact that by following His voice, His sheep have eternal life. So far, we’re in familiar territory, with Jesus’ metaphors echoing imagery from the Old Testament.
But then an important shift occurs. Jesus speaks about the relationships between Himself, His Father, and His sheep. The last two sentences of today’s Gospel passage present a challenge.
From speaking about Himself and His Sheep, Jesus moves to speak about Himself and His Father. “The Father and I are one.” This is not distraction on Jesus’ part. This assertion relates to what He has just said about His sheep, and about Himself as the Good Shepherd.
How is unity one of the most important themes of the Easter Season? How is the mark of unity—one of the four marks of Christ’s Bride, the Church—a call from Jesus to the love that the Father and the Son have for each other? How is the Mystical Body of Christ the means by which our human love for our neighbor raises us into the love of the Triune God?
“I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
Often when we picture the Good Shepherd, we imagine him carrying a single stray sheep on His shoulders. That’s consoling when we’re preparing for Confession, or praying at night during our examination of conscience. But when Jesus the Good Shepherd takes us upon His shoulders, where does He carry us back to? When Jesus returns us “home” through the gate that He Himself is, what exactly is this “home”?
In fact, the Good Shepherd carries us back into the midst of the flock. Jesus returns the stray to its flock so that all one hundred can graze and dwell together. Here we have an image of the Church. Being a Christian is never just about “me and Jesus”. As soon as we try to separate love of God from love of neighbor, we will love neither God nor neighbor as He wants, or as He does. Within the flock of the Church is where God teaches us to mingle love of Him with love of neighbor.
Here we start to see the importance of the gate. The gate is an entrance into the life of God’s flock, not just into divine life. The Church as God’s flock is a chief theme of the Easter Season, and our preparation for Pentecost. That’s why our First Reading throughout Easter is from the Acts of the Apostles: the book of Acts is all about the life of the early Church. That is to say, Acts teaches us how the first Christians lived a common life as God’s flock, with the Apostles as their earthly shepherds. God’s flock on earth is His Church, whose life we experience both within our parish family and at home within the domestic church.
Every year, the Gospel Reading on the Fourth Sunday of Easter comes from the tenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel account. That entire chapter focuses upon the imagery of sheep and their shepherd. That’s why the Fourth Sunday of Easter is customarily called “Good Shepherd Sunday”. But in today’s Gospel Reading, while Jesus does mention “the shepherd of the sheep”, His chief focus lies elsewhere.
Jesus focuses in today’s Gospel Reading upon “the gate for the sheep”. This focus is emphasized by Jesus in the way He introduces His teaching about the gate. He begins: “Amen, amen, I say to you ….” Here we need to stop and consider this important phrase.
In the Gospel account of St. John, Jesus speaks this phrase—“Amen, amen, I say to you …”—fifty times. Fifty times Jesus begins an important teaching with this phrase which signals to us just how important the subsequent teaching is. Jesus means these words to be a red flag. Jesus doesn’t want us to miss His point.
But in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus twice within the span of just seven verses says, “Amen, amen, I say to you ….” That’s more like a red cape being waved in front of a bull. We should consider His point here as so necessary to being His disciple that without hearing and heeding it, we would be lost.
So what is this point that Jesus stresses so strongly in this Gospel Reading?
“I am the gate for the sheep.” This is what Jesus says the second time He powers up His speech with those strong introductory words: “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep.” The first time that He uses those introductory words, He’s speaking about the same reality a bit differently: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate, but climbs over elsewhere, is a thief and a robber.” The common thread is “the gate”, which Jesus identifies with Himself.
This is important for you and me, because Jesus is first emphasizing that we need to be members of a flock, and that we need to enter into this flock through the gate that Jesus Himself is.
But where does this gate that is Jesus lead?
Very often, when we picture the Good Shepherd, we imagine him carrying a single stray sheep on His shoulders. That’s definitely a consoling image for us when we’re preparing for Confession. But when Jesus as the Good Shepherd takes us upon His shoulders, where does He carry us back to? When Jesus returns us “home” through the gate that He Himself is, what is this “home”?
The Good Shepherd carries us through the gate back into the midst of the flock. Jesus returns the stray to its flock so that all one hundred can graze and dwell together. This is an image of the Church. Being a Christian is never just about “me and Jesus”. As soon as we try to separate love of God from love of neighbor, we will love neither God nor neighbor as He wants, or as He does. Among the flock of the Church is where God teaches us to mingle our love of Him with our love of neighbor.
Here we see better the importance of the gate. The gate is an entrance into the life of God’s people, not just into divine life. That is, the Gate who is Jesus leads not just to deification, but to deification through the Mystical Body of Christ. The gate that Jesus speaks about in the Gospel Reading is not simply the Pearly Gate leading into Heaven. We cannot enter through the Pearly Gate into Heaven unless we first enter the Gate into the Church on earth.
This is a chief focus of the Easter Season. That’s why our First Reading throughout Easter is from the Acts of the Apostles. The book of Acts is all about the life of the early Church, which is to say, how the first Christians lived a common life as God’s flock, with the Apostles as their earthly shepherds. God’s flock on earth is His Church, the life of which we live out practically among our parish families.
The difference between the divine food of the Bread of Life and any ordinary human food is that human food strengthens the human body only according to the nature of the food: which is to say, according to whatever vitamins and minerals and so on are within it. If you eat an apple, it doesn’t matter if you’re a sinner or a saint: your body will be nourished in just the same way. Likewise, if you eat a steak, it doesn’t matter if you’re a scoundrel or a nobleman: your body will be nourished in just the same way. When you then leave the dinner table, regardless of your moral and spiritual character, you can use the physical strength from that ordinary human food to commit good deeds or bad deeds: virtuous actions or vicious actions, as you will.
But divine food is different. Divine food cannot strengthen you to accomplish whatever you wish. It can only strengthen you to accomplish what God wills, as God designs. The divine food of the Most Holy Eucharist strengthens Christians for their vocations, so that the grace of the other sacraments might flowers as those sacraments are designed by God. Baptismal grace strengthens you to conform your life according to the pattern of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony conforms spouse’s lives that they might, according to God’s particular will, beget and rear children in the Faith, in additional to themselves—husband and wife—grow in unity as persons. Likewise, the Sacrament of Holy Orders conforms a man’s life to preach, to offer sacrifice, and to offer the charity of God through the other sacraments.
The divine food of the Most Holy Eucharist, then, only gives you the strength to accomplish what God wants to accomplish through you. Divine food is for divine purposes. In a similar way, prayer teaches us what God wants us to do with our lives, not how to get what we’re wanting from God.
Too often in our modern day, we Christians approach God from the perspective of a consumer culture, where God offers us bargains and deals. We can be tempted to consider His grace to be a cash-back program for participating in the sacraments. By contrast, John 6 is about Jesus sub-ordinating His whole Self—Flesh and Blood, soul and divinity—to His Spouse, the Church. That Church includes you as one of her members. These passages from the Word of God in John 6 become Flesh in the Holy Eucharist. The strength of that Word made Flesh can helps each of us to nurture the spousal, nuptial bond with Christ. This bond is unbreakable because the one Who has called us to that union with Him is Himself divine. Yet we have to share wholeheartedly in it according to our own will. That’s why each of us has to sacrifice her own will to the Will of God.
“For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink.”
Jesus, like any good teacher, responds to the ignorance of those to whom he’s speaking. The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can he give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus replies not by saying that “eating his flesh” is just a figure of speech.
Instead, Jesus replies by saying, “if you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. … For my Flesh is true food and my Blood is true drink.”
Jesus, at this point in the Gospel, does not offer this real bread and drink just yet. He does not speak in the present tense, saying, “The bread I am giving you is my flesh.” Instead, He speaks of the future: “The bread I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”
Jesus gave His Flesh and Blood for us on the Cross on Good Friday. But He established the Sacrifice of the Mass on the night before He died. We know the truth that we must be like Christ to truly live. But we cannot imitate Christ through sheer will-power. We must be nourished by God Himself. Only when He dwells within you can you live your life as He led His: or more accurately, can He live His life in you.
At the Last Supper, with His apostles, He prepared a banquet for those who would follow Him to the Cross. We cannot separate the Eucharist and the Cross. The Eucharist is not for us and our plans. The Eucharist is to strengthen us for accomplishing God’s holy and providential Will.
“… the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
Jesus first declares, “I am the Bread of Life.” Then He describes Himself as “the bread that comes down from Heaven so that one may eat it and not die.” Third, Jesus calls Himself “the living bread”. In all three of these statements, Jesus explains that He is not just nourishment. Jesus is a bread that offers a life stronger than death.
“Life” is what Jesus is as God, in His divine nature. “Bread” is what Jesus is for us, in His human nature. So it’s through Jesus’ human nature that He reveals His love for us, and allows us to share in His love.
This Bread, in other words, is for you, but not about you. Through the Bread of Life you grow in the likeness of the divine person of Jesus Christ. Through the Bread of Life you participate in divine life.
Then Jesus reveals this awesome Mystery even further. In the very last phrase of today’s Gospel passage, Jesus stakes the claim that makes or breaks His disciples: not just that He is bread, and not just that as bread He gives life that’s stronger than death.
Jesus declares: “the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.” Jesus is not just “bread”. He is not just “food for the hungry”. Jesus is not just bread that offers life. He is not just bread that strengthens you to survive death. Jesus is the divine Word made Flesh, and His Flesh is the bread that He “will give for the life of the world.”
Reflections on the Sacred Liturgy 