April 24 Monday: (St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest, Martyr):
The context: Today’s Gospel introduces Jesus’
famous discourse on the Holy Eucharist which emerged within a dialogue between
Jesus and the Jews who had gone around the Lake and come to Capernaum searching
for him. In answer to their question about his arrival, Jesus challenged them,
saying that they were looking for him so they could get another free meal and
that such meals would not satisfy them. He also instructed them to labor for
food that would give them Eternal Life.
Naturally, the Jews asked Jesus what they should do to get
such a food. Since the Jews believed that the Torah was the “bread of life,”
many may have thought that Jesus was instructing them to keep the Torah to
attain Eternal Life. So, Jesus clarified that they had to do the work of God to
attain eternal life; he told them that the “work of God” was not to work
miracles for their own sake but to believe in Him as the Son of God, sent to
give Eternal Life to those who believed in him. While regular food helps us to
stay alive in this world, spiritual food sustains and develops our supernatural
life, which will last forever in Heaven. This food, which only God can give us,
consists mainly in the gift of Faith in Jesus and in the grace God gives us to
live according to Jesus’ teaching. Through God’s infinite love, we are given in
the Blessed Eucharist the very Author of these gifts, Jesus Christ, as
nourishment for our souls.
Life message: 1) Most of the time, we work for
food which only nourishes the body. Jesus teaches that he is the Heavenly food,
who nourishes the soul and gives us eternal life in union with God in Heaven.
Hence, let us receive this Life-giving food both in the Holy Eucharist and in
the Holy Scripture with proper preparation and reverence while repenting of our
sins.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
April 25 Tuesday: (St. Mark, Evangelist):
The context: In the Last Supper discourse, Jesus
tells the Apostles about leaving them in order to return to his Father and about
coming again at the end of time to usher in the new age of God’s kingdom. When
they start asking each other the meaning of these statements, Jesus explains to
them the hardships they will have to face after his departure and the glorious
reward waiting for them in his Second Coming. But as he had consoled them
earlier, promising to send a Paraclete, now Jesus assures them that his absence
is only temporary.
A little while: Jesus is speaking about a three-level
disappearance and reappearance. The first level is Jesus’ death and
Resurrection. The apostles will no longer see Jesus when he dies. But they will
see Jesus again in three days as their risen Lord. The second level is the
mystical level: They will lose sight of Jesus physically when he ascends to the
glory of the Father. But they will see Jesus again in many ways by Faith when
the Holy Spirit comes (e.g., in the Holy Eucharist, in the Holy Bible, in the
praying community, and in people we meet). There is also a third level. Jesus
is not now visible physically to the world but will manifest his glory to the
whole world when he comes again in glory for the Last Judgment. In the light of
eternity, a few thousand years are but an instant, a very short while.
Life messages: 1) Let us try to recognize the presence
of the living Lord in our midst here and now. 2) Let us ask Him to help us
adjust our daily lives accordingly, so that we, too, may inherit the eternal
joy prepared for us.
Fr. Tony (frtonyshomilies.com)
April 26 Wednesday:
The context: In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus
repeats his claim that he is “the Bread of Life.” He means that, just as God
sent manna from heaven to sustain the physical life of his people in the
desert, so He has sent His Son Jesus to sustain the spiritual lives of His
people. Spiritual life is actually Sanctifying Grace, our living relationship
with God the Father, through His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus makes three claims: 1) He claims to be our spiritual
Food and offers himself in order to produce God’s life within us. 2) He
promises to those who believe in him unbroken friendship with God. 3) Jesus
also promises to those who believe in him a share in his own Resurrection at
the end of this world and share of Eternal Life with him in Heaven.
Life messages: 1) We need to live dynamic
spiritual lives, sharing in God’s Life, Sanctifying Grace, through the Holy
Eucharist. 2) We can keep the friendship of Jesus only by leading holy lives
free from sin. 3) We can enjoy and share the joy of Jesus’ Resurrection only by
realizing and appreciating his presence within us and all around us. Only God
can satisfy our deepest needs. Fr. Tony: (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
April 27 Thursday:
The context: Today’s Gospel passage is the
continuation of Jesus’ teaching on the Bread of Life. Jesus declares that he
has seen God his Father because he has come from Heaven. Jesus also states that
we hear God the Father’s Voice through him and through the Holy Spirit because
the Father draws us to Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
Jesus reminds the Jews that they cannot be his disciples
unless God his Father draws them to him and teaches them. The Magisterium
of the Church has repeated this teaching in Vatican II: "Before this Faith
can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he
must have the interior help of the Holy Spirit, Who moves the heart and
converts it to God, Who opens the eyes of the mind and makes it easy for all to
accept and believe the truth" (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 5). Once
they become his disciples, Jesus will feed their souls with the Bread from
Heaven, and this Heavenly Bread is his own Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
Eternal Life is reserved for such disciples. This Eternal Life is a Life of
love, fellowship, communion, and union with God.
Life message: 1) Holy Communion is the wonderful
banquet at which Christ gives himself to us: “The Bread which I shall give
for the life of the world is My Flesh.) Hence, let us receive the
glorified Body and Blood of the Risen Lord Jesus in the Holy Eucharist with a
repentant heart, proper preparation, reverential fear, and grateful joy. Fr.
Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
April 28 Friday:
The context: The Jewish audience for Jesus’
teaching on the Bread of Life were scandalized at his statement that he was
going to give them his Flesh to eat, for it suggested to them cannibalism,
forbidden in the Jewish Scriptures. Hence, they wanted to know how Jesus could
give his Flesh to eat as a means to gain Eternal Life. Jesus asserted that it
was a must for them to eat his Body and drink his Blood if they were to receive
Divine Life, Eternal Life, and resurrection from the dead. There is no way to
interpret Jesus’ words as “simply symbolic,” which would mean that receiving
Communion is only a metaphor, and not really eating and drinking the Body and
Blood of Christ. Jesus stresses very forcefully that it is necessary for us to
receive him in the Blessed Eucharist in order to share in Divine Life and to
develop the life of grace we have received in Baptism. “We receive Jesus Christ
in Holy Communion to nourish our souls and to give us an increase of grace and
the gift of eternal life” (St. Pius X Catechism, # 289). “Really sharing
in the body of the Lord in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread, we are taken
up into communion with him and with one another.” (Vatican II, Lumen
Gentium, 7). Jesus adds that eating his Body and drinking his Blood
are essential for abiding in him, which is, on this earth, the beginning of the
Eternal Life of Heaven. Communion with Jesus enables us to start enjoying
Eternal Life with God here on earth, while resurrection gives us eternal life
with God forever. St. Thomas Aquinas gives this explanation: “The Word gives
life to our souls, but the Word made Flesh nourishes our souls.” (“Commentary
on St. John, in loc.”).
Life message: 1) We need to receive Holy Communion
with the full awareness that we are abiding in Jesus, carrying him wherever we
go. Hence, we are expected to radiate to all around us the love, the mercy, the
spirit of service, and the forgiveness of Jesus. Fr. Toy; (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
April 29 Saturday: (St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin
and Doctor of the Church)
The context: Jesus knew that ordinary people
with large, sensitive hearts, rather than proud intellectuals, were able accept
the “Good News.” Such people would inherit Heaven rather than the learned and
the wise who prided themselves on their intellectual achievements. Hence, in
the first part of today’s Gospel Jesus prays in thanksgiving to His Father,
praising God for revealing Himself to the simple-hearted, and thus condemning
intellectual pride. Jesus’ unique claim: that He Is God’s perfect
reflection: “No one really knows the Father except the Son,
and him to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27). The
claim that Jesus alone can reveal God to men forms the center of the Christian
Faith. In another context, In John’s account of the Last Supper conversation,
Jesus declares: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (Jn.14:9).
What Jesus says is this: “If you want to see what God is like, if you want to
see the mind of God, the heart of God, the nature of God, if you want to see
God’s whole attitude toward men–look at Me!”
Invitation to accept Jesus’ easy yoke and light burden:
For the Orthodox Jew, religion was a matter of burdens: 613 Mosaic laws and
thousands of oral interpretations, which dictated every aspect of life. Jesus
invites us to take His yoke upon our shoulders. The yoke of Christ can be seen
as the sum of our Christian responsibilities and duties. To take the yoke of
Christ upon us is to put ourselves in a relationship with Christ as servants
and subjects, and so to choose to conduct ourselves accordingly. By saying that
His “yoke is easy” (Matthew 11: 30), Jesus means that whatever God sends
us is made to fit our needs and our abilities exactly. The second part of
Jesus’ claim, “My burden is light” (Matthew 11:30), does not
mean that the burden is easy to carry, but that it is laid on us in love and is
meant to be carried in love, and that love makes even the heaviest burden
light.
Life message: We need to unload our burdens on the Lord. This is one of the functions of Divine Worship in the Church and the main purpose of our personal and family prayers. These are given to us by God as a time for rest and refreshment, when we let the overheated radiators of our hectic lives cool down before the Lord, unload the burdens of our sins and worries on the altar, and offer them and ourselves to God during the Holy Mass. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
