19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B
How do you deal with difficulties, pain, sorrow, persecution, trials and sufferings in your life and especially in your spiritual life as a Christian? It can be very overwhelming and frustrating sometimes that we voice out our anger towards God like Prophet Elijah did saying "This is enough, O LORD! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers," as we heard in the First Reading from first Book of Kings 19:4-8. We feel like all odds are against us and we feel like giving up, but God continues to reach out to us like He did in Elijah’s case in different ways by blessing us, protecting us, guiding us and assisting us with our needs in the most challenging times of our lives. With such acts of love, God reminds us that He is with us and has not abandoned us. This is why Jesus reminded the Jews who were murmuring about and against Him in today’s gospel reading from the gospel of Saint John 6:41-51 that He is "the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that He will give is His flesh for the life of the world." Jesus with those words reminded them, who He was and urged them to listen and hear Him out.
Of course we call ourselves children of God and even bear the name Christian, but have we truly lived out the gospel of Christ or heeded to His words? Living out the gospel or heeding to Christ’s words entails being His imitators as stated by Saint Paul in our second reading today from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians 4:30-5:2. So how do we imitate Christ? We can imitate Christ by living in His love and by loving others as He loved us. But that love explained Saint Paul, is centered on doing good which involves being kind to one another, being compassionate, being forgiving to one another as God has forgiven us in Christ. We can also love others by removing all bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling along with all malice from our hearts.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, as Pope Francis reminded us today, that "Jesus reveals Himself as the Bread of life. For He alone nourishes the soul, He alone makes us feel loved even if everyone else disappoints us, He alone gives us the strength to love and forgive in difficulties, He alone gives eternal life," let us be imitators of Christ by loving Him, by doing good and by removing evil and sin from our lives. Amen!
