Perish vs Endure

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time 

John 6:24-35  

Bread of Life Discourse cont…

Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.  Do not work for food that perishes but for food that endures

Altar(anthropologically speaking)

Table

Altar or Table

Altar and Table

Both/and?  

How about Altar turned Table.

We human beings have always seemed to know what we need.  But the ‘how’ can be so problematic.

At the Altar was sought reconciliation and bonding…gathered around a corpse.  

At the Table we seek reconciliation, and healing, and bonding and comfort…i.e. food that endures. The price is our love for one another in imitation of the God of love Jesus came to reveal.  

Not a corpse but a meal.

Our desire to be made one demands our reconciliation with each other…the sacrifice is our own.

Strengthen, O Lord

THE HANDS that holy things have taken, that they may daily bring forth fruit to thy glory.

Grant, O Lord,

That THE LIPS which have sung thy praise within the sanctuary, may glorify thee forever;

That THE EARS which have heard the voice of thy songs, may be closed to the voice of clamor and dispute;

That THE EYES which have seen thy great love, may also behold thy blessed hope;

That THE TONGUES which have sung the Sanctus, may ever speak the truth.

Grant that THE FEET that have trod in thy holy courts may ever walk in the light,

And that THE SOULS AND BODIES, which have tasted of thy living body and blood, my ever be restored in newness of life.

       ---from the Liturgy of Malabar, quoted from Eucharist, A Sourcebook p.110