Wednesday in the Third Week of Easter, April 16, 2024

John 6, 35-40

Jesus said to the crowds, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

In the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, the Lord continues to teach the people whom he had fed with the loaves and the fishes.  He says to them, “But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe.”  This sentence is better translated, “But I told you that you have seen me [my miracles] and you do not believe.”  According to St. John Chrysostom, the phrase “But I told you” refers back to chapter 5, where the Lord argued with a crowd in Jerusalem who would not believe in him though they had seen his miracles of healing.  If this is the case, some of that crowd may have followed the Lord into Galilee, been fed by him, and then followed him to Capernaum.  Or, the Lord is speaking in a general way to the Jews of their reluctance to believe in him.  “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me.”  In the next line, the Lord speaks of those who do believe.  He is saying, then, that it is not his fault if people do not believe in him: it is the fault of those who have seen the miracles and refuse to believe.  Those who do believe are responding to the grace provided by the Father while those who do not respond do not believe.  “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”  Jesus thus links the obedience of those who respond to the Father’s grace with his own obedience to do his will.

“And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.”  We see the care of the Holy Trinity in the destiny of the believer.  The Father provides grace, and so “gives” the one who responds to it to the Son.  The Son carefully guards the one committed to him lest he be lost.  The Son does this by teaching him his commandments and offering his own sacrificial life as a model as well as the source of further grace.  The believer who then observes these commandments and lives according to the Son will be raised by the Son “on the last day”.  The believer will not be left on his own to face a fading present and an uncertain future.  “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.”  The Lord speaks again about the need to “see” the Son.  This seems to contradict what he says to Thomas later in this Gospel: “Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed” (20, 29).  Here, the verb translated as “sees” actually means “knows” — to see spiritually.  So, “everyone who knows the Son and believes in him”: those who accepted the grace to know that Jesus is the Son of God.  Knowing the Son leads to belief in him, which leads to eternal life.  “I shall raise him on the last day.”  That is, the body of the believer will be raised to rejoin its soul so that the full person of the believer may enjoy eternal life.  Our bodies are not disposable trash upon death, but are also meant for an eternal destiny, and should therefore be cared for and even honored.  The early Christians revered the tortured and slain bodies of the martyrs as their “trophies”.

The Offertory Prayers

Following the intercessory petitions that make up the Universal Prayer, or, the Prayer of the Faithful, bread and wine is brought forward and set on the altar.  Either it comes from the nave where the congregants sit, led by a procession of altar servers, or it from a small table alongside the altar called the credence table.  The bread must be composed solely of wheat flour and water.  It is unleavened.  If the bread has anything in it besides wheat flour and water, it may not be used, nor can it be used if it is leavened.  Likewise, the wine must be grape wine and without preservatives or flavorings or anything else.  The bread is in the form of “hosts” (from a Latin word meaning “sacrificial offering”), little round circles of bread, making them easy to eat and swallow.  

The priest takes a special host that is larger than the others and raises it to the level of his chest and says a prayer blessing God for the gift of the bread and mentioning that it will become “the Bread of Life”.  Setting this sown on the altar the priest then raises his chalice, which now contains a little of the wine and a drop of water.  The priest pours the drop of water into the wine in the chalice and prays, “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”  He says this prayer quietly and not aloud.  He then raises the chalice to chest level and blesses God, thanking him for the gift of the wine, and he mentions that it will become “our spiritual drink”.  These two blessing prayers may be said aloud or quietly according to the priest’s discretion.  These offering prayers replaced the ancient prayers used up until the 1970 Missal was promulgated, and are based on Jewish table prayers.  The older prayers are sacrificial in nature and ask for the forgiveness of sins.  Here is the prayer offering the wine: “We offer to you, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, beseeching your mercy: that it may ascend in the sight of your divine majesty with the odor of sweetness for our salvation and that of the whole world. Amen.”  

The priest then bows to the altar and prays, “With humble spirit and contrite heart may we be accepted by you, O Lord, and may our sacrifice in your sight this day be pleasing to you, Lord God.”  This translates the ancient prayer set in this place.  The priest will now wash his hands and pray for mercy while doing so.  This is no mere function, but an essential ritual.  We will consider it next.