8th August, 2021

​My dear friends,

Today, 8th August, is the feast day of St Hugh Canefro, a rather delightful and inspiring saint who was a knight of the medieval Order of St John. Hugh was born around 1186 to a noble family at Alessandria in Italy. As a young man, he became a knight hospitaller of the Order of St John around the time of the third crusade and served in the Holy Land.
 
Hugh appears to have taken his obligation to care for ‘our lords the sick’ very seriously. There is a story that he once sold his armour – a very serious step for a knight – and used the money to help care for the sick. Hugh later returned to Italy and was elected Master of the Commandery of St. John di Prè in Genoa.
 
The Commandery had its own infirmary or hospital, where Hugh led from the front, inspiring others to lives of service by his own personal example. Although Hugh was the Master, he had no airs and graces and used to sleep on a board in a corner of the infirmary basement, in order to be available if needed by the sick during the night. He did all he personally could to take care of them, even washing their feet. It is recorded that Hugh served the sick, poor and destitute of Genoa with love and tact, giving them food, money, practical Christian love and spiritual comfort. When poor people died in the infirmary, Hugh ensured they received proper Christian burial. Hugh took the life of prayer very seriously, reciting his breviary, spending time in private prayer and attending Mass daily. It was said that the eight-pointed Cross was not only to be found on St Hugh’s cloak –he also wore in on his heart. He died in around 1223.

A prayer for the feast of St Hugh (8th August)

O God, who gave to St Hugh power to heal the sick by the sign of the cross,                            
give us the spirit of your own love, to serve you in our sick brothers and sisters.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son,                                                              
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,                                                                  
​one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

As some of you have already heard, after nineteen years as priest-in-charge of Great and Little Bardfield, my work here is to come to an end. The Diocese of Chelmsford intends to amalgamate my parishes of Great and Little Bardfield with the neighbouring parishes of Finchingfield, Shalford, Wethersfield and Cornish Hall End. In consequence, I have been told to find another job. The Bishop of Chichester has offered me the post of priest-in-charge of Catsfield and Crowhurst in East Sussex. My final Sunday service at St Mary’s Church, Great Bardfield, will be in two weeks’ time on Sunday 22nd August at 10.30am. Friends from St John Essex will be most welcome.
With my continued prayers and all good wishes,

​                                             The Rev. Dr  ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
TRINITY 10 – 8th AUGUST 2021.
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Gospel: St John, chapter 6, verses 35, 41-51
“Are you free this afternoon? I thought we’d go and find that rabbi, Jesus. You know, the one from Nazareth. They don’t much like him down on Jerusalem – that’s southerners for you! – but he’s been going round healing the sick. I heard that last week, up by Lake Galilee, he broke five loaves and two fish, and used them to feed thousands. Yes, that’s right, thousands. No, I don’t know how he did it. I heard he did the same thing a few weeks ago. Well, I wouldn’t mind a free feed, wouldn’t you! Free bread, without having to go to the baker’s and pay his prices, I ask you! Meet you about five o’clock, then we’ll go and find him.”
 
Well, I should think there were a lot of conversations rather like the imaginary one above around Lake Galilee in about 32 AD, when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. He was tapping into the ancient Jewish story of the manna in the wilderness, when God fed His chosen people with some mysterious white food from heaven, before they reached the Promised Land. Some people sought out Jesus because they were genuinely interested in what he had to say. Others had problems and needed his help or healing. Some were simply gawpers, out for a bit of fun. Once the tales of free bread began to spread, great crowds appeared and followed Jesus around, so that he quickly became very tired.
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            On one occasion, Jesus rebuked the crowds: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labour for food which perishes, but for food which endures to eternal life.’ A little while later, he explained: ‘I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’

            When Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life,’ I think he meant two things. Firstly, he meant himself as he then was; a man of flesh and blood, walking, breathing, eating and sleeping; a real human being, born at a particular time. But more than that: someone who was not just a man, but also the second Person of the Holy Trinity, God’s own Son, come to earth to bring us forgiveness of sins and the way to eternal life with God in Heaven. When he said, ‘I am the bread of life,’ he was referring to what we might call the whole enterprise of the Incarnation: God’s rescue mission to save humanity from the Fall, Original Sin, earthly pain and suffering, death and eternal damnation.

            Not surprisingly, some of his audience scoffed: ‘Is not this Jesus, the Son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’

            This is a typical human reaction. Faith is a gift from God; yet, faith is also a gift which many people are reluctant to accept, for fear, I suppose, of the unknown, or of somehow losing control of themselves and their lives (as though we are ever really in control!). And yet, the gift of faith is offered freely by God to all, and it brings with it deeper understanding of many things, and most especially the true identity of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

‘No one can come to me, unless drawn by the Father who sent me,’ Jesus told the crowd. And he then added something which looked to the future: ‘And I will raise that person up on the last day.’ This is the whole point of the Incarnation. Jesus Christ will shortly die upon the Cross in expiation for our sins. God will raise Jesus in the Resurrection; and Jesus will resurrect all who have believed in him. ‘I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’

            I want to suggest, though, that these words, seen in the context of the rest of this passage, have a second meaning. Jesus, I believe, was also looking forward not just to the Resurrection, but to what came a few days earlier: Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper. He was anticipating the institution of the Eucharist, and making it abundantly clear that each time we come to Holy Communion, we receive not symbols or tokens, but Christ’s actual flesh and blood, sacramentally given to us under the veils of bread and wine. This means they taste of flour, yeast, and grapes, but they are truly the sacramental body and blood of Jesus Christ, and they bring us his eternal life and love. A new sort of manna from Heaven.

The early Christians always spoke of the Eucharist with the same flesh-and-blood realism that we find in St John’s gospel. St Justin Martyr’s description of the Eucharist from around 155 AD contains the words: ‘The (Bread and Wine) which has been made Eucharist is – [einai, no word could be stronger] – the Flesh and Blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.’ The Eucharist was at the heart of the life of the early Christian Church – we might remember that much of the New Testament was written and circulated to be read during the Eucharist. A North African Christian who faced martyrdom during the Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians between 303 and 311 AD said: ‘Without fear of any kind we have celebrated the Eucharist, because it cannot be missed … We cannot live without the Eucharist.’

Every Church which has bishops in the Apostolic Succession, going back to the twelve apostles, teaches the doctrine of what we call the ‘Real Presence’ of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. There might be quibbles about details, but they all believe the same core belief about our receiving Jesus Christ’s Body and Blood in Holy Communion.

Let us return to a tired Jesus, teaching the crowds by Lake Galilee. The last line in today’s Gospel is: ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ Jesus is talking about himself, the bringer of forgiveness and eternal life; about his Incarnation. He is talking, too, about his Real Presence in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, transformed by the Holy Spirit into his Body and Blood.

And, for those who have the eyes of faith, there is an important link. The Real Presence is a sacramental extension of the Incarnation. Jesus Christ, who shared fish and bread with the crowds, he who sat beside Lake Galilee and taught them deep and wonderful truths, also comes to us today, and every day, in his holy Eucharist.
He is the bread of life.