Abbot Columba OSB
When a flash of lightening leaps across a darkened landscape our eyes are opened to hidden features. Sometimes the same thing can happen with a few words of scripture, when they flare brightly and illumine our minds and hearts. In the gospel according to John two words are repeated regularly in order to leave a lasting imprint on our awareness of Jesus: I AM.
Of course we use these words ourselves all the time: ‘I am from Ireland’, ‘I’m tired’, ‘I am on the way to the airport’. But in the gospel according to John the words ‘I am’ are used regularly in a solemn and beautiful manner: I am the Bread of Life, I am the Good Shepherd, I am the Gate, and so on.
Hidden behind these simple words is the mysterious name of God. Remember the call of Moses at the burning bush, when he was sent to bring his people out of slavery in Egypt. He asked the Lord for his name. He was told to say ‘I AM has sent me…’ Now Jesus says, ‘I Am… I AM…’ His awesome identity is being hinted at through the repetition of these mysterious words.
If these is who Jesus really is, then everything he has being saying in the gospel accounts of recent Sundays makes sense: he is the bread which has come down from heaven. He invites us to come to him, to believe in him, to entrust ourselves to him, to listen to him, to learn from him. He wants me to share my life with him so that he can share his life with me.
Today he takes it even further: the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world. I AM has taken flesh. God is one of us. He becomes one of us in the flesh and in our flesh and blood will die our death. He will give up his life. He shares everything of who he is with us and, in order to bring this home in a very personal and graphic manner, he captures it all under the simple signs of food and drink,
bread and wine. The life that comes from heaven, the life that took flesh among us, the life given up for us on the cross, is given as bodily food and drink.
Sharing in this food is sharing in the life of God himself. But it doesn’t happen by magic. It’s not simply a mechanical result of something we do with our mouths and our digestive systems. The sharing in God’s life implies everything else that Jesus has been speaking about: coming to him, believing in him, entrusting our lives to him, listening to him, learning from him. What we do at his table every Sunday is the culmination of all of this; it is also the fountain of life that makes it all possible.
When we have heard the word of Jesus as food for our lives and digested it, then we are ready to receive a fuller taste of his life in the Eucharist. When he have done this we are empowered to live his eternal life in the here and now, from day to day.