Pilgrimage Sunday
Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; John 6:24-35
Home, sweet home! Home is sweet, when you have one. Home is sweet, when it has the character of a home: loved ones, kindness, peace, serenity and fond memories. It was at Capernaum, his home village, that Jesus was rejected by his own people who disregarded the miracle he performed and trivialized his genealogy. Today, the setting is different! Jesus is important, he is a super-star with many people crowding around him and asking for food. How quickly the human mind changes from evil to good, especially when hunger is involved. How fertile and receptive the human mind is, when the going is smooth and sleek! Our gospel today begins with the statement: “When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus” (John 6:24).
Moses didn’t have it so nice and palatable, in the first reading, when the Israelites complained about their bad meal and hunger. The memories of home, sweet home, in the minds of the Israelites, were the cucumbers and melons they ate in Egypt. Who can blame them? Egypt was the only “home” they knew, its menu the only one they were accustomed to, despite its tragedies of slavery and servitude. The price of freedom became costlier than incarceration, because slavery destroyed their taste buds from discerning the savor of liberty. After all, there is an adage which says, “if you cannot go forward, you can at least go backwards!”
Pilgrimage Sunday is the realization that we are all on a journey; it is an invitation to weather the storms of temptation NOT to attach importance to food and material things to the detriment of the salvation of our souls. If God went in search of the Israelites in Egypt to lead them out of slavery to the Promised-land, in our first reading, our world today and our individual lives still cry out for liberation from all kinds of slavery seeking liberation. Some of us are slaves to food, sex, power, wealth, substance addiction, etc. Even for those who claimed to have repented, they still seek the melons and cucumbers of their former lives, like the Israelites of our first reading.
Pilgrimage Sunday is the courage to seek Jesus above all else! In our gospel reading today, it is the crowds that looked for Jesus in Capernaum, they looked for him at home. The presence of God is home, and his absence is exile and servitude. If God proved himself to be among the Israelites by providing them with meat and bread, in our first reading, Jesus combines meat and bread in our gospel, because he wants to teach the crowds that he is actually the meat and bread they seek. That is, bread and meat only satisfy temporary hunger; but Jesus satisfies eternal hunger. Indeed, the journey of life is a voyage to God himself, in order to live in his company.
Food is good, but beyond food is the maker of food, God himself. Food is not loved for itself but because of the nourishment and sustenance it provides for human life. The same food, when prepared and provided by God, becomes a source of spiritual nourishment for the human soul – a meeting with God. This is why Jesus reorients the longing of those seeking him: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal” (John 6:26-27). As it were, when the human person works hard to secure food, that kind of food only nourishes the physical body. When a meal is provided free-of-charge by God himself, whether in the form of Manna or Bread, it nourishes the soul and brings about communion with God.
There are always moments when one feels that the end has come, that the energy to move an inch further is no longer there; that was the situation of the Israelites. In the journey of life, there are always moments of discouragements and temptation to give up. Interestingly, it is exactly at such moments that we need to ask for food in order to forge ahead, like Elijah needing food in order to journey to the mountain of God to encounter God. The uncertainties of the Promised-land, which laid siege on the minds of the Israelites, remind today’s Christian of the doubts our generation cast over the realities of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. In fact, we doubt our very origins and devise theories to explain the origins of the human person—Big Bang Theory, evolution, etc. Israel’s temptation to remain with the visible and physical is still with us today, who are glued only to what is palpable and concrete, and refusing all that is invisible, the denial of the presence of God and the relevance of religion to the 21st century human being.
When the journey of the Israelites out of Egypt, in the direction of the Promised-land, is taken to mean the human PILGRIMAGE from this life to an eternity with God, then the invisible makes sense because where uncertainties abound, there is the need for the presence of God to explain things to us and to help us navigate the uncharted territories involved. The earthly Promised-land is a reminder of our pilgrimage to Heaven, our real Promised-land and Home. Although ships are built to sail the high seas, and never to spend all their time in the harbor, yet, ships are at the mercy of high seas once they set sail! The desert encounter of Israel with God, far removed from the slavery of Egypt and the uncertainty of the final destination of the Promised-land, is a call to faith and trust in God, the sole master of uncertainties!
With God is free food, because God procures it for human beings. The food God provides is free salvation for humanity, through Jesus Christ. Little wonder Jesus warns the crowds, “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you”. The bread which Jesus gives is a sign of home coming. One pays for one’s food in restaurants and buffets, NOT at home. Restaurants have no guests but clientele! Our Eucharistic banquet is free food time, the food of eternal salvation.
Yes, Paul is right, there is the “new self” that comes from communion with God, from eating the bread of God: “that you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth”. What must animate a Christian is the desire for holiness and communion with God. The longing for the “fleshpots” of Egypt and the glorification of earthly food keep one in the past and doesn’t make room for the new – communion with God. The “old” and past are our sinful ways and our attachments to them. The “new” is righteousness and transformation of vices into virtues.
In the very ordinary things of this world, we encounter God. In the unlikely of places, God’s presence is found. In our ordinariness and sinfulness, God seeks to be united with us through food. May our eating and drinking be salvific and grace-filled moments and occasions!
Assignment for the Week:
Could you go for Confession/Reconciliation this week, so that Christ would be welcomed into a happy home – your heart?