Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa: XX Sunday Of Ordinary Time
Below you can find the Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the XX Sunday of Ordinary Time, Sunday 18 August 2024.
Jn 6:51-58
At the center of this Sunday's Gospel passage (Jn 6:51-58) we find the word life. Counting both adjectives and nouns and verbs related to this term, we find it at least 8 times. We could say that the discourse on bread is a discourse on life.
In John's Gospel, the question of life does not only return in this chapter.
In fact, the whole of the fourth Gospel shines the spotlight on this discourse, on this question: in John the theme of life returns again and again.
And this from the very first verses: in the Prologue, John makes it clear at once that in the Word there is life, and this life is light for men (John 1:4). That is, he clarifies that the Son of God, who took on flesh like us, has in him the very life of God, a life that does not die.
A few chapters later, he also says that Jesus came so that we might have life in abundance (Jn 10:10). The talk about life continues until the last chapters, those of Easter: at the first conclusion of the Gospel, at the end of chapter 20, John says that the Gospel was written for we might believe and that, believing, we might have life (Jn 20:31).
All the signs Jesus performed, too, have in some way a close connection with life: the water of the Samaritan woman (Jn. 4), the light of the born blind man (Jn. 9), the life restored to Lazarus (Jn. 11) ...
And so is the bread of this sixth chapter we are reading: all the signs speak in some way of life.
That is why Jesus was sent, so that we might have life (cf. Jn. 6:57: "Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me, will have life because of me.")
But why is the theme of life so important?
We often repeat that Jesus gave life, and this is true: he gave life, that is, he agreed to die for the love of us, for our salvation, so that we might know the Father and his infinite mercy.
But it is equally true that Jesus gave life, that is, he made sure that everyone he met could live, and live well, live fully. He restored life to those who could never have given it to themselves.
Therefore, Jesus did everything so that we could be alive.
To love, after all, is nothing but that, it is to give life: to give life like a mother, nurturing, cherishing, growing life in others. What does it mean that Jesus is the living bread, bread that gives us life?…
This Meditation was originally published on the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Please click here to read the full text.