The Bread of Accompaniment

Dear Friend,

Peace and all good be yours!

In this Sunday’s Gospel we find ourselves in the final verses of the sixth chapter of John and the conclusion of his great explication of Jesus as the bread of life. It’s a climax tinged with sadness as we hear that “many of his disciples returned to the former way of life and no longer accompanied Jesus.” (v. 66)

I believe the good news for us this Sunday challenges us to reflect on how alliance might give way to accompaniment as the fundamental framework of our personal and communal relationships. Such a shift opens a zone of fragility and vulnerability where divine life can do the work of transformation. Accompaniment points to covenant, a specific kind of alliance, one initiated by God binding the divine life to that of the human family fashioned in the divine image. Generosity and faithfulness come to the fore as God is revealed to us as the living act of love embodied in Jesus Christ.

Today in Afghanistan and Haiti we are witnessing the tragic fractures built into human alliances. At the same time, accompaniment of the poor and vulnerable is emerging as the fundamental and ongoing demand of the Gospel, not to say of the entire prophetic tradition from which it springs. Here accompaniment becomes the supreme act of “handing oneself over” in love for the sake of the other. Paul boldly introduces the relationship of husband and wife as a reflection of that intimate bond between Christ and the people for whom he gave his very life.

At the heart of God’s accompaniment is the “bread of life” and this Sunday we are asked whether we are prepared to receive Jesus as the bread of accompaniment, bread for the world.

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor