Catholics will have a five-week scriptural retreat to gather the fruits of the National Eucharistic Congress. As happens every three years, five Sundays this summer are dedicated to reading John 6 — the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Bread of Life discourse — at the Masses for the Lord’s Day. 

Two talks at the congress highlighted John 6: the dramatic reading by Catholic actor Jonathan Roumie and the closing homily by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle. That was not surprising. The theme of the congress was “My Flesh for the Life of the World” (John 6:51). 

 

 

Roumie and the Bread of Life Sermon

Roumie had arrived at the congress having just filmed the Last Supper scenes on the set of The Chosen. He was clearly moved by the experience and shared a brief testimony about the impact of the Eucharist, of daily Mass, in his life. Then, instead of giving a speech, he read — in his  voice as Jesus from The Chosen — the Bread of Life sermon.

It was profoundly moving and a highlight of the week. Roumie explained that the Bread of Life discourse would not likely be part of The Chosen; he evidently had a deep desire to include it somehow in his portrayal of Jesus. The congress gave him the opportunity, linking the Last Supper he was then filming to the Bread of Life sermon. 

The two go together: St. John does not include the Institution of the Eucharist in his Gospel, as the other Evangelists do. Why leave out such an important episode? Because it is already covered in John 6 in the Bread of Life sermon. 

One of the remarkable aspects of The Chosen series is the collaboration of different Christian traditions in its development. While the producer and writers are Protestant, there are also key Catholic collaborators, beginning with Roumie himself. The result has been widely praised by Catholics. 

John 6 is read differently by Catholics and Protestants. It would have been hard to include it in a way that respected both traditions. After all, The Chosen does not cover all of the Gospels. The understandable focus of Jesus’ preaching was the attention given to the Sermon on the Mount.

A personal note: In 2014, I was one of a group of religious leaders invited to accompany Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on an official visit to Israel. Most were rabbis, and the other Christians were Protestant. So when we arrived at Capernaum for a private spiritual visit for the prime minister, I was the only Catholic in the group. The Bread of Life sermon was preached in the synagogue at Capernaum, so I proposed that I read it there. I did so, for the prime minister, his wife and my fellow Christian pastors. 

What was a deeply moving experience for me made less of an impact on them; John 6 resonates with Catholics in a way that it does not with Protestants. Watching Roumie at the congress, I could appreciate that he treasured reading John 6 amongst a Catholic congregation. The congregation shared in that appreciation. (Watch Roumie’s reading here.)

 

 

Cardinal Tagle and Vatican II

Cardinal Tagle framed his homily around Jesus as a gift who teaches us to see others as gifts and to make of ourselves a gift to others. 

“Jesus is sent to be given by the Father to others. He is sent to be a gift, to be given,” Cardinal Tagle preached. “Mission is not just about work but also about the gift of oneself. Jesus fulfills his mission by giving himself, his flesh, his presence, to others, as the Father wills it. Jesus’ mission and gift of self meet in the Eucharist.” 

“Dear brothers and sisters, will you stay with Jesus?” he asked. “Those who choose to stay with Jesus will be sent by Jesus. The gift of his presence and love for us will be our gift to people. We should not keep Jesus to ourselves. That is not discipleship. That is selfishness. The gift we have received we should give as a gift.”

Cardinal Tagle’s scholarly background is in the study of Vatican II. While he did not make reference to those texts in his homily, I could not help but think that he provided a Eucharistic context to the two texts of Vatican II that were most frequently quoted by St. John Paul the Great, Gaudium et Spes (GS), 22 and 24:

“The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. … Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (22).

“Man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (24).

Cardinal Tagle, in his meditation on the Eucharist as a gift, implicitly linked both texts together. He built his homily around John 6:32, which reveals that explicitly: ^“Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.”

It continued, “They said to him, ‘Lord, give us this bread always’” (John 6:34).

Only in Christ can man fully understand himself (GS, 22). Christ reveals not only the Father, but who man is created to be. The Father sends the Son as a gift to the world, and the Son gives his flesh for the life of the world. Thus Jesus reveals who man is, and Jesus is a gift. 

If Jesus is a gift, and he reveals who man is, then it follows that man too is meant to be a gift. Hence, “man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (GS, 24).

Thanks to John Paul, Gaudium et Spes’ Paragraphs 22 and 24 have been studied exhaustively, usually in an anthropological key, on the nature of man. But exhaustively does not mean that the depth of that teaching has been exhausted.

In his emphasis on the Eucharistic revelation of Christ as a gift, Cardinal Tagle gave a sacramental dimension to those key texts. His homily clearly inspired — and occasionally entertained! — those in the stadium, but he offered more than inspiration. He offered a Eucharistic recasting of Providence as an act of gift giving and giving of self as the way in which we are created in the image and likeness of God.

With Roumie and Cardinal Tagle leading the way, Catholics are ready for five weeks of reflection on John 6, beginning this Sunday.