JESUS THE BREAD OF LIFE
First Reading: Exodus 16: 2-4 and 12-15
Second Reading: Ephesians 6: 17 and 20-24
Gospel Reading: John 6: 24-35
*First reading is from the book of Exodus. Israelites had to struggle through the desert for forty years while on their way to the promised land. When they were hungry they bitterly complained and murmured against Moses and the Lord God who liberated them from the slavery of Egypt. The Lord God listened to their complaints and provided them with manna and quails for their food. Moses told them that that was the bread (manna) that the Lord God had given them. Thus manna became a pre-figuration of the living bread that is the Eucharist that Jesus gives us.
*Second reading is from the letter of St. Paul to Ephesians. Paul urges the Christian community at Ephesus to leave their former nature and former way of life which was corrupt and deceitful. He pleads with them to accept the new way of life in the likeness of God which is righteousness and holiness.
You believe in Him whom God has sent Today's Gospel reading is from St. John. After the multiplication of loaves by Jesus and feeding the five thousand, people are very excited and happy with Jesus. They feel that He is a permanent solution for their hunger. They are in search of Him. Jesus is not very amused with this situation. He firmly tells them that they are merely looking for signs and perishable food. He takes this opportunity to teach them about the imperishable and life-giving food that will lead them to eternal life. In order to receive this eternal life, they have to believe in the one sent by God. After this discourse of Jesus people again ask for a sign from Him like what Moses did when he gave them food from heaven. Finally Jesus reveals Himself by telling them, "I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me will never thirst." (John 6:35) Often we too are like the Jews at the time of Jesus, looking for various signs and immediate benefits rather than lasting solutions - short term happiness without really looking for lasting and permanent solutions to our problems of life.
"People don't know what they are striving for. They exhaust themselves in the senseless pursuit of material things and die without realising their spiritual greatness." - Solzhenitsyn
"It is in our emptiness that we are filled. It is in our confusions that we are guided. It is in our weakness that we are strengthened. It is in our sins that we are forgiven. It is in our hunger that we are fed."- Fr. F McCarthy.
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