Finding Lasting Happiness — Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

Finding Lasting Happiness — Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

Finding Lasting Happiness — Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon 

Friends, the ensemble of this world that God has made is good, and we're meant to enjoy it; however, we hunger for something that transcends this world. Christ is the only good that can satisfy us. Daily 

Gospel Reflection – Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

August 01, 2021 

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Gospel: Jn 6:24-35 

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” So they said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” 

Source: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 

Bishop Robert Barron 

Friends, today’s Gospel comes from the bread of life discourse: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” What God has wanted from the beginning is to sit down with his creatures in a fellowship banquet, sharing life and laughter, giving and receiving and giving back again. This is the loop of grace that I’ve often spoken of. The more we receive the divine life, the more we should give it away and thereby get more of it. 

Throughout the Old Testament, we find images of the holy banquet. On God’s holy mountain, Isaiah says, there will be good meats and pure, choice wines. And throughout his ministry, Jesus hosts meals to which all are invited. God wants to share his life with us. 

This comes to full expression in the Eucharist, when Jesus identifies himself so radically with the bread and the wine that they change into his Body and Blood, and then he invites all of us around this table to feast and share life, to give and receive and give again.