Author: admin

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Gospel: John 6:52-59

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my Flesh is true food,
and my Blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

The Gospel of the Lord.

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In the Book of Genesis, how do Adam and Eve break their communion with God?

Through an act of eating.

As Satan the serpent slithers in the Garden of Eden, he convinces Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, which she then shares with Adam. 

This act of disobedience breaks the command given by God to Adam: “You are free to eat from any of the trees in the garden, except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it, you shall die.”

Christians understand this to be the origin of sin – and by extension the evil that is still present in our world. Once humanity’s relationship with God was severed, “all hell broke loose,” as it were.

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In today’s Gospel, Jesus reveals how our relationship with God can be restored.

Just as Adam and Eve lost communion with God through a disobedient act of eating, so we are brought back into relationship with our Father through an obedient act of eating.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”

Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. 

In the Eucharist, we eat from the Cross, the tree of life.

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What are we to do with such a great gift?

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Saint Augustine said, “Become what you consume.”

Be the hands, the face, the voice of Christ in the world through acts of prayer, charity, and self-sacrifice. 

What might that look like for me today?

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Image credits: (1) Divine Judgment, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo (2) FreePik (3) Catholic Answers

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Gospel: John 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.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,” the Lord says in today’s Gospel.

Whenever this verb draw is used in scripture, it implies a type of resistance, of pushing and pulling.

For example, John uses this verb to describe Saint Peter dragging a net full of fish ashore. The same verb is later used in the Acts of the Apostles to describe Paul and Silas being dragged before government authorities.

It’s also the verb Jesus uses to describe the spiritual dynamics between God and his creation in today’s Gospel. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.”

If you imagine a game of tug-of-war, God pulls from one side, and we often pull from the other.

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Where do I find that type of resistance – or tension – in my relationship with God?

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Perhaps I’ve been lazy about praying more, or have procrastinated returning to church.

Maybe I’ve dragged my feet when needing to offer an apology as Christ commands us.

Or have been slow to let go of a particular habit.

Maybe I’ve let God fade from coming first in my life.

We can make a thousand excuses for why we resist those tugs at our conscience, but perhaps today we can try one simple exercise:

Let go and let God draw us ever closer to himself.

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Image credits: (1) Little Pink Houses of Hope (2) T Nation (3) Go Be Radiant

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Gospel: John 6:35-40

Jesus said to the crowds,
“I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
But I told you that although you have seen me,
you do not believe.
Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,
and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,
because I came down from heaven not to do my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.
And this is the will of the one who sent me,
that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,
but that I should raise it on the last day.
For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him
may have eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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Throughout the Gospels, Jesus makes several claims about himself starting with the words, “I AM,” including:

“I AM the Good Shepherd.”

“I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

“I AM the gate, the door, the light of the world, the vine, the resurrection and the life.”

All of these statements have roots in the Old Testament, and each of them makes Jesus the hinge of salvation. 

He is the way to God.

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But the first “I AM” statement in John’s Gospel comes from the passage we heard today: “I am the bread of life.” 

This bold proclamation provides the foundation for understanding much of Johannine theology. Namely, Jesus is not only God, but is also God in the flesh – and God fully present in the Eucharist. 

As Saint Augustine once said, “We become what we consume.”

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How has receiving Christ in the Eucharist changed me?

In what ways am I becoming like Christ – bread broken and shared, nourishing, available to all?

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May we become what we consume.

The heart, the voice, the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

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Image credits: (1) Bibblia JFA Offline (2) Dad Speak, WordPress (3) Tim Staples, LifeTeen