Daily Gospel Reflection – Thursday of the Third Week of Easter
May 5,2022
Thursday of the Third Week of Easter
Gospel: Jn 6:44-51
Jesus said to the crowds:
“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.
Not that anyone has seen the Father
except the one who is from God;
he has seen the Father.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
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.”
*United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus declares, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven." The bread is referred to as living. Bread is good, but it’s not alive. Instead, when we take it in, and it is turned by our bodies into fat or muscle or bone, then it comes alive.
But it is just the opposite with the living bread of Christ. This we take in and we become alive in a way that we were not before. And this is why Jesus says that he is bread come down from heaven.
What is heaven? St. Paul says, "Eye has not seen and ear has not heard what God has prepared for those who love him." Paul’s pithy remark gives us a clue: "those who love him." Whatever heaven is, it is the realm of God, and therefore it is a realm of love.
What is the Eucharist, this heavenly food, but a participation in the love between the Father and the Son? In the Eucharist, the sacrifice of Christ is made present, and the sacrifice of Christ is the fullest expression of the love of the Father and the Son.
COMMENTS