The Bread of Life Discourse

Today's Reflections 

                                                 

The Bread of Life Discourse

Jn 6:22-29

²²The crowd that remained across the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not gone along with his disciples in the boat, but only his disciples had left. ²³Other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread when the Lord gave thanks. ²⁴When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. ²⁵And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” ²⁶Jesus 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. ²⁷Do 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.” ²⁸So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” ²⁹Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

Do not work for food that perishes. In the 1870s, the Fleischmann family had a bakery in New York, USA, renowned for the freshness of its bread. The reputation was also due to the fact that all the bread left on the shelves at closing time was given away to the poor. The queue of hungry people standing outside the shop each evening came to be known as a breadline.

“My food,” Jesus says, “is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work” (Jn 4:34). He now reveals himself as giving food greater than the loaves that he multiplied to satisfy thousands of people. He distinguishes between food that perishes and food that endures to eternal life. The manna that God provided for the people of Israel to eat in the desert was perishable. But the bread that he offers us in the Eucharist is food that endures for eternal life.

Holy Communion is our breadline:

we line up to receive from the Father,

given absolutely free, Jesus, the bread of eternal life.