Building Bridges

During the course of this Liturgical Year, we will follow Jesus along in the Gospel according to Mark.  Because Mark is the shortest of the gospels, those who put together the Sunday lectionary felt it convenient to interrupt Mark’s account of the story of Christ and insert the sixth chapter of St. John’s gospel.  This is Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse.  So in the middle of Ordinary Time, sometime toward the end of July and beginning of August, we will interrupt Mark and hear from John’s gospel.

What this does, for me, is to give the arc of our liturgical year the defining characteristic of the discourse on the bread of life.  All of ordinary time leads up and flows from this reflection on Jesus as bread that satisfies the deepest longings of the human heart.

Last week I suggested that a spiritual and pastoral theme for this year might be:  Hungering and Thirsting for the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.  The challenge in this is to see what we do and who we are, personally and communally, through the lens of our hungers and thirsts and to reflect on what we look toward to satisfy our hungers and thirsts.

Already, this strikes me as helpful.  Just yesterday, on Saturday, hundreds of people from our cluster and the wider community gathered at St. Augustine’s for the Kids Against Hunger project.  Both money, in excess of $20,000, and time, more than 650 people, were given to package more than 150,000 meals to feed the vulnerable in Jamaica.  It should come as no surprise that people for whom bread and wine stand central to their ritual practice, feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty comes naturally.  Those who know God as the Bread of Life, must share bread that nourishes human life.

In this year where the Bread of Life Discourse will mark the center of our Ordinary Time, we ought to reflect on our hungers and thirsts.  We need to reflect, as well, on the authentic hungers we encounter in the people of the world around us, hungers spiritual and natural.  In this Bread of Life year, we ought to experience ourselves challenged to feed more deeply on Jesus and to more intentionally feed others on whatever bread we have.

Fr. Tony

Readings for the Week of January 22

Sunday:Jon 3:1-5, 10/1 Cor 7:29-31/Mk 1:14-20
Monday:2 Sm 5:1-7, 10/Mk 3:22-30
Tuesday:2 Sm 6:12b-15, 17-19/Mk 3:31-35
Wednesday:Acts 22:3-16 or 9:1-22/Mk 16:15-18
Thursday:2 Tm 1:1-8 or Tit 1:1-5/Mk 4:21-25
Friday:2 Sm 11:1-4a, 5-10a, 13-17/Mk 4:26-34
Saturday:2 Sm 12:1-7a, 10-17/Mk 4:35-41
Next Sunday:Dt 18:15-20/1 Cor 7:32-35/Mk 1:21-28