Living bread

“I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” (From today’s Gospel reading, Jn. 6: 41-51).

Again and again, we come to appreciate that the human body is central to our Christian spirituality. The very person of Christ modeled this for us in the way he was born, lived his life, died, and rose from the dead. The body as the temple of the Spirit. Sadly enough, throughout the centuries, through misuse and abuse, which is human sinfulness, the body often degenerated to be more and more as the temple of the Ego, rather than the temple of the Spirit.

On the other hand, we must be on guard not to go to the other extreme, which some well-meaning, pious religious groups may tend to do. Reacting to the evils of hedonism, they tend to move to the other extreme of exaggerated spiritualism. Our faith tells us to keep going back to the Person of Christ and continue our courageous efforts in recovering and living by our original blessing, gift, and mission: Incarnational Spirituality. It is in this context that I now quote the well-respected spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen:

“The greatest mystery of the Christian faith is that God came to us in the body, suffered with us in the body, rose in the body, and gave us his body as food….The body is not seen as the enemy or as a prison of the Spirit, but celebrated as the Spirit’s temple. Through Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection, the human body has become part of the life of God. By eating the body of Christ, our own fragile bodies are becoming intimately connected with the risen Christ and thus prepared to be lifted up with him into the divine life.” (From The Road to Daybreak). This is the meaning of the Gospel passage quoted above. Nouwen continues:

“It is in union with the body of Christ that I come to know the full significance of my own body. My body is much more than a mortal instrument of pleasure and pain. It is a home where God wants to manifest the fullness of the divine glory. This truth is the most profound basis for the moral life. The abuse of the body — whether it be psychological (e.g., instilling fear), physical (e.g., torture), economic (e.g., exploitation), or sexual (e.g., hedonistic pleasure-seeking) — is a distortion of true human destiny: to live in the body eternally with God. The loving care given to our bodies and the bodies of others is therefore a truly spiritual act, since it leads the body closer toward its glorious existence.”

So many bodies of our poor brothers and sisters in Christ are not given adequate and decent care and respect, and the cause of it all is extreme poverty. Exploitation of the poor by those who are economically well-off continues to be one of our greatest evils in this, our beloved country. The capitalistic, laissez-faire, socio-economic system in the Philippines clearly violates God’s law of love and justice, which is socialistic, and not individualistic in nature.

In his recent Encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate” (Charity in Truth”), Pope Benedict XVI speaks of integral human development in charity and truth. Like what previous Popes have repeatedly declared, Benedict XVI emphasizes the two criteria that must govern moral action: justice and the common good. In connection with human development in our time, the Pope declares that “if profit becomes the exclusive goal, it is produced by improper means and without the common good as the ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty….The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase….”

A related issue that the Holy Father is urgently advocating for is an “equitable agrarian reform in developing countries.” We are slowly moving toward this goal. Recently, the House of Representatives approved the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program until 2014. But after that, what then? Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel reported that more than one million hectares of agricultural land still have to be distributed to tenant-tillers. Christ’s mission for us to be bread for others continues, on both the national and personal levels.

On the national level, let us be inspired by that exemplary Christian Couple-For-Others, the late Ninoy and Cory Aquino. Ninoy gave his all serving the Filipino people. While in prison, his God-inspired dream was to work for a Christian socialist system of governance, but he was murdered, as Christ was. Later on, his simple housewife Cory became no less than our national President, whose example of moral integrity and dedication was lived to the hilt, all the way to her death, just a week ago. May each one of us follow their example, in our own God-inspired, personal ways.

Lord, as I consume your living bread from day to day, may I have consumed by it and be bread for others all the way, up to the last day of my life on earth. Amen.