Word of the Week

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Eternal: (Aionios: Gk): meaning “without beginning and end, that which always has been and always will be”, or “without end, never to cease, everlasting.”

Eternal Life is “living forever with God in the happiness of heaven, entered after death by the souls of those who die in the grace and friendship with God (988, 1020). In preaching the Kingdom of God, Jesus called all people to eternal life, which is anticipated in the grace of union with Christ: ‘This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’” (Jn.17:3) (CCC Glossary, 877).

The aforementioned Greek for the word eternal can be found 71 times with its most  frequent use found in the gospel of John: 17 times. Its most prominent place can be found in the Bread of Life discourse encompassing all of Chapter 6. The first use of ‘eternal’ sets up each subsequent use by contrasting the “food that will perish” against the food (meat) “which will endure to everlasting life” (Jn.6:27)--the food that Christ himself will become in the gift of the Eucharist. In the subsequent use of ‘eternal’, John sets up the relationship between the Eucharist and belief. John teaches that if the faithful believe Christ is the bread come down from heaven (cf. Jn.6: 35-38) then man who believes in the Son of Man will have eternal life, and (God) will raise him up on the last day (cf. Jn.6:40).  Belief in Christ as the bread of life is accentuated seven verses later with the emphatic words of Christ: “Truly, Truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life” (Jn.6:47-48). And for good measure, just in case the tie between eternal life and the Eucharistic meal had yet to be understood, Christ is very specific with how we are to attain eternal life: “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn.6:54). Christ offers the food that is both eternal and sacramental.

This Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time calls us to reflect upon the mystery of the Eucharist and its relationship to live in the ways of the wise forsaking foolishness (cf. Prov.9:6; Eph.5:15-16). Drawing from the medicine of the bread of immortality (CCC, 1331), we are to live as wise men ‘in the grace and union with Jesus Christ’. Vigilant against the attacks of the adversary, we are too discipline ourselves to build up the family of God. Turning our gaze towards the Liturgy, which is the eternal present, man receives “the source and summit” of grace by receiving our Lord in the most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist and at once drawing him into the mission of bringing people back to the mystical body of Christ. Essentially, man is called to view the world as an altar, upon which he offers his relationships and workplace as an offering to God!

“What is eternal is offering Christ up in all things”

--Anonymous

Primary Texts Consulted

1. Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.

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