John 6 51 – 58

Jesus said to the Jews. I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me has real life, eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever. I am the Bread – living Bread! – who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.”

At this, the Jews started fighting among themselves: “How can this man serve up his flesh for a meal?”

But Jesus didn’t give an inch. “Only insofar as you
eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day. My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you. In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died.

Whoever eats this Bread will live always”.

Gospel Reflection

The Eucharist of the Resurrection would have been easily explained as a food for the spirit; for the intangible; an optional extra in an age of reason. Jesus is not just spirit but flesh and blood. He knows what hunger is like; he knows the gnawing longing that fills the flesh and the mind and the imagination. When you are hungry, really hungry, then all you can do is think, feel, remember, and desire nothing else than food; beyond reason.

This is how hungry our desire should be for God; physical, emotional, spiritual; unable to be satisfied by anything other than God.

In the Eucharist, Jesus feeds all of us with all that he is –‘this is God’s body, this is God’s blood’ – it is for you to question whether it is true – ‘it is your faith that will save you’.