XIX Sunday in Ordinary Time

By: Father José Miguel González Martín

August 8, 2021

 

“Get up and eat, because the road you have left is very long.”

Do not sadden the Holy Spirit of God.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

 

Readings

 

First reading

Reading of the First Book of Kings 19, 4-8

In those days, Elijah walked a journey through the desert until, sitting under a broom, he implored death saying:
“It’s too much, Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my parents! ”.

He lay down and fell asleep under the broom, but an angel touched him and said:
“Get up, eat.”

He looked around and at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jug of water. He ate, drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord returned a second time, touched him and again said:
“Get up and eat, because the road you have left is very long.”

Elijah got up, ate and drank, and, with the power of that food, walked forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.

 

Psalm

Ps. 33, 2-3. 4-5. 6-7. 8-9

R / Like it and see how good the Lord is.

I bless the Lord at all times, his praise is always in my mouth;
my soul glories in the Lord: may the humble listen to him and rejoice. R.

Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord, let us exalt his name together.
I consulted the Lord, and he answered me, he freed me from all my cravings. R.

Behold him, and you will be radiant, his face will not be ashamed.
The afflicted man called on the Lord, he listened to him and saved him from his anguish. R.

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and protects them.
Taste and see how good the Lord is, blessed is he who takes refuge in him. R.

 

Second lecture

A reading from the letter of Saint Paul to Ephesians 4: 30–5, 2

Brothers and sisters:
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God that he has sealed you for the day of final deliverance.

Banish bitterness, anger, anger and insults and all evil from you. Be good, understanding, forgiving each other as God forgave you in Christ.

Be imitators of God, as dear children, and live in love as Christ loved you and gave himself for us to God as an oblation and victim of sweet smell.

 

Gospel

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John 6: 41-51

At that time, the Jews murmured about Jesus because he had said: “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and they said:
“Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph? Don’t we know his father and his mother? How does he say now that he has come down from heaven? ”

Jesus spoke up and said:
“Don’t criticize. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

And I will resurrect him in the last day.

It is written in the prophets: “They will all be disciples of God.”

Everyone who listens to the Father and learns, comes to me.

It is not that someone has seen the Father, except the one who is next to God: that he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I tell you: whoever believes has eternal life.

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert and died: this is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that man may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread that has come down from heaven; Whoever eats this bread will live forever.

And the bread that I will give is my meat for the life of the world ».

 

Commentary

 

Today’s Word of God continues to help us to deepen the mystery of Christ the Eucharist, bread of eternal life, with the continuation of the text of chapter 6 of the Gospel according to Saint John.

But before, in the first reading, we are offered a precious text from the Old Testament in which we are presented with the great prophet Elijah, tired and burdened, perhaps also disappointed, after having walked through the desert, even imploring death, telling him to God: “It is too much, Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my parents! ”. Elijah has not lost faith, since he turns to God, but he does have the will to live, the desire to continue walking and fighting for a better future for his people, the impulse to continue speaking about God and prophesying in the name of the.

How many times has the same thing happened to us as to Elías and we have also said: “It’s already too much, Lord! … we can’t take it anymore … this is beyond our strength … take us with you.” So many times the prolonged tiredness, the suffocating burden, the useless suffering, the lack of motivation, the mountains of difficulties, the cold loneliness, the rejection of those who are close, the forgetfulness of the far away, the humiliating calumnies, the elemental deficiencies, the illnesses incurable, the limitations of old age, the pressures that prevent us from looking to the future with peace –each one knows their own- make a deep dent in our spirits and we seem to be unable to do any more. We have hit rock bottom and we don’t know where to start or how to go back.

It is time to turn to God to shout, or cry, or claim… but without losing faith in Him. Moreover, without fear or reprimand, like Elijah, we have to implore Him because God is always listening and waiting; God never leaves us alone; he is a good Father. Our weakness and smallness, manifested in this way, humbly before Him, will be the best soil in which the seed of God’s omnipotence and love will grow and manifest. Because God chooses the weakest in this world to confuse the strong; because the strength of God will be realized in our weakness.

Also to us, as to Elijah, the Lord repeatedly says: “Get up and eat, because the road you have left is very long.” Certainly, the weakened patient always finds it difficult to get up and eat; but we know well that if he does not do it, the disease, whatever it may be, will increase and threaten his survival. Also to us, as to Elijah, the Lord prepares us and offers food for the journey; If we feed on Him, on His Word, on His Spirit, we will be able to come back to life each day with the strength that only He knows and can give; it is the force of faith, of the incarnate testimony, of a coherent and faithful life until the end.

In today’s Gospel we are reminded again that Christ himself is the food for eternal life. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist in the Church again, the Lord feeds us with his Word, with his Spirit, with his Body and his Blood. And nourishment from him increases faith, strengthens hope and rekindles charity. In everyday life, we are pilgrims, walkers, who need to get up every time we fall, over and over again, and feed on Him to follow the path that he has marked us on, in which he constantly accompanies us, the path of heaven. , the path to eternity.

The journey through the desert, in which our world has become so many times, we must not do alone but within the Church. Saint Paul, in the second reading, invites us to live in a community of brothers, not to sadden the Holy Spirit, who is the greatest gift that God the Father has given us in baptism and confirmation, the gift of his Spirit . God, as the good Father who is of each one of us, is saddened by our disputes and violence, our superficialities and evils, our arrogance and arrogance, our injustices and falsehoods. In order not to sadden God, we must renounce evil and always choose good with determination. Give up the evil of bitterness, anger, anger and insults. Choose for kindness, understanding, kindness and forgiveness to be imitators of God, as dear children, to live in love as Christ has loved us.

Pope Francis says that “renouncing evil means saying ‘no’ to temptations, to sin, to Satan. More specifically, it means saying ‘no’ to a culture of death, which manifests itself in the flight from reality and in the path towards a false happiness that is expressed in lies, in fraud, in injustice, in contempt. on the other… But not doing evil is not enough to be a good Christian; it is necessary to adhere to good, to do good … How many do not do evil, but neither do good, and their life runs in indifference, apathy, lukewarmness. This attitude is contrary to the Gospel ”.

 

Prayer

I love, Lord, your paths, and my burden is soft
(your shoulders carried it) that you put on my shoulders;
but sometimes I find that the journey is long,
that the sky before my eyes of darkness dresses,

that the water of the road is bitter …, it is bitter,
that this ardent heart that you gave me gets cold;
and a dark and deep desolation overwhelms me,
and I feel sad soul to sad death …

The weak spirit and the cowardly flesh,
the same as the tired peasant, in the afternoon,
from hard fatigue I would like to rest …

But then you look at me … and it fills with stars,
Lord, the dark night; and behind your tracks,
With the cross that you carried, it is sweet for me to walk. (Hymn of the Liturgy of the Hours)

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