This Sunday readings, especially the first reading and the Gospel, connect with last Sunday’s readings. The importance of food is highlighted, the bread of life.
In every culture, food expresses warm feelings, hospitality, good memories, and personal values. We even have a smell and taste of familiar food to us. And on a large scale, food is part of the culture. Similarly, Jesus takes all these meanings expressed through food and leads us into a deeper understanding of the miracle of feeding that took place last Sunday in the first reading and the Gospel. In this Sunday’s Gospel, the crowd has been searching for Jesus, most probably wanting more of the physical bread again. But Jesus knows their deeper spiritual hunger. Likewise, our life is an expression of the perennial search for meaning and fulfillment. That fulfillment we are always searching for is in the Lord. With him in our lives, our spiritual hunger gets satisfied.
Besides, in the Eucharist, the bread of life, we receive the Lord our fulfillment and life’s meaning. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst (John 6:35). With Jesus our life’s fulfillment, we have no reason to grumble like Israelites in the first reading, but we can join the Psalmist in acknowledging God’s providential love and care. Thus, this sense of life’s fulfillment must lead us to a new way of life proclaimed by St. Paul.
This week, grow with a greater appreciation of the Eucharist. If you visit Jesus in the Eucharist, turn all your worries and bad situations to him who provides for us.
Joy and peace
