Friday, April 4, 2014

2nd Passiontide 2008, Bread from Heaven

2nd Passiontide
John 6: 26-35

Do not work for the food that spoils, but create for yourselves the nourishment that leads to imperishable life, which the Son of Man will give you because he is totally permeated by the being of the Father God [upon him the Father has set his seal].

Thereafter they said to him, “What must we do in order to learn to do deeds which endure [that our deeds may work with the working of God]?

Jesus answered, “The working of God is [already in] this: that in your whole being there begins to stir trust in him whom he has sent.”

And they asked further, “What sign of the spirit can you perform in order that we see and therefore come to trust in you? What effect do your deeds have in the present time? Our fathers ate manna in the desert, as it says in scripture: ‘Bread from the heavens he gave them to eat.’”

Egbert Codex
Jesus said to them, “The truth I say to you, it was not Moses who gave to you bread from the heavens, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from the heavens. The bread from the world of the spirit is he who descends to you from the heavens; he gives himself as the true, unceasing life of the world.”

Then they said, “Lord, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I AM the bread of life. He who finds the way to me will hunger no more, and he who comes to me in faith and trust will nevermore thirst.

And they asked further, “By what sign that you do shall we be able to see your essential nature and therefore come to trust in you? What is your working? Our fathers ate manna in the desert, as it says in scripture:

'Bread from the heavens he gave them to eat'.”

Jesus said to them, “The truth I say to you, it was not Moses who gave to you bread from the heavens, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from the heavens. The bread from the world of the spirit is he who descends to you from the heavens; he gives himself as the true, unceasing life of the world.”

Then they said, “Lord, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I AM the bread of life. He who finds the way to me will hunger no more, and he who comes to me in faith and trust will nevermore thirst.

2nd Passiontide 
March 2, 2008
John 6: 26-35

When one has not eaten for a long time, one’s consciousness can become fuzzy and faint. We feel perhaps like we are beginning to float away. In such a case, food becomes the anchor that brings us back to earth again. Bread brings body and soul together again; we experience food as medicine.

Something similar can also occur from the opposite direction. The simplest, perhaps even the smallest amount of bread, can become richly nourishing, provided we bring our devoted attention to the act of eating. Candles, flowers, white table linens, a treasured company of guests help focus and enrich our attention. Nourishment comes from both the food itself, and from what we bring to its ensouling.

In the Act of Consecration of Man, these two elements come together with a remarkable result. We provide the ritual setting, the candles and flowers and linens, even the bread and wine. And to them we add the very best of our souls’ forces: our purest thoughts, the love of our hearts, a devoted will. Thus do bread and wine become ensouled by our speaking our energies into them. Then we offer these ensouled foods to the Guest and His Father on the other side of the table. And they in turn add their life, the very essence of their being into them. Bread of earth becomes bread of heaven, bread for the angels. And then it is given back to us as the consecrated living essence of God, the food that truly brings the body and soul of Man and God together, the food that is the true medicine.

The early mystic Ephraim of Syria said:


His holy body wholly mixed
with our bodies, and His pure
blood poured generously out
to fill our veins, His voice
now pulses in our ears,
and look! His lighted vision
pools within our eyes. All of Him
is mixed with all of us—
compassionate communion. And as
He loves His church His body
utterly, so He gives
it more than bread, more
even than bread from heaven,
but gives His own, His
living bread for her to eat.

….and we
rise strengthened, comforted, luminous.[1]






[1] Ephraim of Syria († 373), “The Living Bread”, in Love’s Immensity, Scott Cairns, p. 21.