Among the hoi polloi though who couldn’t afford expensive health supplements, Ernie Baron, known to be the “walking encyclopedia,” popularized his “Pito-Pito”— a blend of seeds or leaves of seven traditional medicinal plants—as a cure-all tea for health problems.
To date, countless health products mushroomed in the market, the latest being that of a stem-cell booster to keep our cells and tissues young. What a wonder! Good news for the “baby boomers” who wish to feel and look a generation younger.
Despite the “culture of death” that is gradually creeping in, e.g. the conspiracy of legalizing measures that suppress the flourishing of life, I believe, humanity’s love for life is inextinguishable. We all see this as people swim for dear life and heroically rescue one another in the face of super typhoons and heavy rains that have flooded thousands of houses. Needless to say, we see life as precious. And not only that, the human spirit will always refuse to die as it has an incontrovertible sense of its eternal destiny.
The gospel reading this Sunday (Jn 6:51-58) is the third sequel of the Bread of Life discourse. This is already the third Sunday that we’ve been reflecting on the theme: Jesus, the Bread of Life. This gospel is the real good news. It has to say about the human spirit’s quest for eternal life.
I think, for all of us who consciously or unconsciously desire to live forever, the gospel today has something to offer that food supplements and health tea cannot. Jesus’ body is the “true food” and his blood the “true drink.” The gospel promises that whoever eats the flesh of the Son of Man and drinks his blood has eternal life (v. 54).
I would like us to reflect more deeply on that promise of eternal life. Almost always we take “eternal life” to mean everlasting life or, as the name of the food supplement suggests, “forever living.” And this is to be experienced in the hereafter. People are always concerned about the length of life. But essentially eternal life is more about the quality of life than just about the length. For who would want longevity if such a life, corrupted by sin, is not worth living on the first place?
Essentially eternal life is divine life. Jesus explains in today’s Gospel, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 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 (vv.56-57). So Jesus is actually sharing the divine life he received from the Father to whoever receives him. Jesus is sharing with us the quality of life that is divine.
When we receive the Lord in our life, first in baptism and in the Eucharist, we are given new life and this is sharing in the divine life, for we remain in him and he in us. How do we live out this divine life? I think the answer is: To live as God lives, i.e., to love! Deus Caritas Est. “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). Pope Benedict’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est describes God’s love as agape—a self-sacrificing love… a love that forgives… even on the cross!
The kind of life that Jesus is giving us is the life that is characterized by agape. And this is the highest quality of life one can ever have! This is a life of self-giving rather than self-serving, a life of forgiving rather than forsaking and hating. Without Jesus, the true food and the true drink, this highest quality of life would be impossible for the sinful and self-centered human being. But with him we can have eternal life, his divine life the essence of which is love. We can have it in the “here and now” and in the hereafter.
Forever living also means forever loving! We will still die of course... naturally. But the death of someone who has lived the life of Christ is but a glorious culmination of a life well-spent and a birth to the everlasting life where one permanently shares in the eternal agape of God.
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