From the responsorial psalm: “I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall be ever in my mouth. Let my soul glory in the LORD; the lowly will hear me and be glad. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John (Jn 6:41-51)
The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven, ” and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.”
Jesus goes on to reveal his relationship to the Father even further. He has seen the Father, he tells the Jews, because he is sent by him. As the bread of life sent down from heaven, Jesus gives eternal life to anyone who believes in him. Jesus recalls for the Jews how their ancestors ate manna in the desert but died. This is the bread that gives eternal life, Jesus says, “so that one may eat it and not die.” The Gospel passage closes with this teaching from the mouth of the one sent by the Father: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The power of God the Father to speak reality into existence is also in the power of the Son sent by the Father. At every Mass, we hear the priest, in the person of Christ, say the very same thing: “Take this, all of you, and eat it; this is my body which will be given up for you.” Done out of love and in obedience to the Father, Jesus accomplishes perfectly what Saint Paul describes in the second reading. He “loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.”
God, I can’t imagine how Jesus could have been more explicit than this in identifying himself as present in the Eucharist—body and blood, soul and divinity. “I am the bread of life.” How clearly Jesus teaches all of us who he is and what he instituted through his life and during the Last Supper. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” Whoever believes has eternal life, Jesus says, and whoever eats this bread will live forever. Teach me, Lord, to have complete trust in Jesus Christ your Son whom you sent from heaven as true food and true drink so that we look to you radiant with joy—now and forever. Strengthen my faith in the Eucharist and with it; let my soul glory in you, Lord, in your goodness!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.