XVIII Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B

I Am the Bread of Life!

“I am the Bread of Life.”
John 6:24-35

After the story of the multiplication of the loaves, today, and for the next three Sundays, we will continue reading chapter 6 of the Gospel of John, a lengthy catechesis on the significance of the “sign” (miracle) performed by Jesus. After returning from the vicinity of Tiberias, we are now in Capernaum, in the synagogue (v. 59). Let’s recall the context. After the miracle, “Jesus, knowing that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself,” while his disciples, at evening, got into the boat and started across the sea to Capernaum. The liturgy skipped this second section of the chapter (6:16-21), which tells the story of Jesus walking on the water to reach his disciples on the boat.

A Dialogue Discourse

The reflection on the “sign” is presented in the form of a dialogue between the crowd and Jesus. We find three questions and a request from the crowd, to which Jesus responds with corresponding interventions.

1. “Rabbi, when did you come here?” The crowd was surprised because they had not found Jesus where he had been the previous day, near Tiberias.
– Jesus, instead of answering their question, goes straight to the intention behind their search: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves”; and he concludes with an exhortation: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life.”

2. “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” The crowd asks for clarification on “working,” that is, what works to perform.
– Jesus responds that only one work is necessary: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

3. “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?” Since Jesus claims total trust in his person, the crowd asks for an additional sign, a greater work than what Jesus had done. Jesus had fed a multitude of five thousand just once, whereas, according to them, Moses had fed an entire people with manna for forty years!
– To this, Jesus responds: “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” That is, not Moses, but the Father, who had given the manna in the past, now offers them the “true bread,” truly “come down from heaven”!

This first part of the dialogue concludes with the crowd’s “prayer”: “Lord, give us this bread always.” But what bread?! Jesus responds with a revelation: “I am the bread of life!” I AM (“Egō eimì” in Greek) is an allusion to the name of God!

So far, it would seem that the crowd shows a certain receptiveness. After all, they sought Jesus, asked for explanations, and formulated a kind of “prayer.” However, there is a persistent underlying ambiguity. While Jesus tries to lead them to a spiritual, profound understanding of the miraculous “sign,” the crowd remains fixated on material bread. We will see what happens in the next three sundays. We cannot judge or condemn them because they are merely a reflection of our reality!

Delving into the Sign

Let us delve into the “sign,” asking the Father to draw us to Jesus. Next Sunday, he will tell us: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (v. 44). We will deepen this work through three words or concepts that summarise the dialogue between Jesus and the crowd: seeking, work, and bread.

1. SEEKING. The story begins with seeking. The crowd seeks Jesus and finds him in Capernaum. Seeking is a natural attitude for those who experience their own neediness in various forms. It is also the attitude of the believer thirsty for God: “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you” (Psalm 63). The theme of seeking is dear to St. John. Jesus’ first words are: “What do you seek?” addressed to the two who follow him (John 1:38). By denouncing the inauthenticity of the crowd’s search, Jesus also challenges each of us. What do I seek in my relationship with Christ? Simply help, a benefit, a grace, or a consolation? Or do I truly seek to establish an authentic bond of love and trust with him? Our answer may seem almost obvious, but it is not. Only a continuous and sincere examination of our deepest motivations will advance a long, arduous, and sometimes even painful work of purification.

2. WORK. The only work of the believer is to seek, know, and love their Lord more and more. Every day we toil to earn our daily bread. A similar commitment should be put into knowing the Lord through God’s Word, prayer, and reflection on life’s events. The day I have not grown in the knowledge of the Lord is a wasted day!

3. BREAD. Bread is the central theme of the readings. It is mentioned countless times in the first reading, the psalm, and the gospel. What kind of bread is it? Yes, it also refers to material bread because when bread is lacking, freedom is easily lost. This is well portrayed in the first reading (Exodus 16) where Israel longs for the time of slavery when they could eat meat and bread to their fill. For the sake of eating, laborers allow themselves to be exploited by gang masters. For the sake of eating, many young women are forced into prostitution on the streets of our cities. For the sake of eating, we sell our dignity, like Esau for a bowl of lentils!…

But “man does not live by bread alone”! God’s Word invites us to become aware of the different kinds of hunger in our hearts and how and with what we are satisfying them. Jesus offers himself as the “Bread of Life” that satisfies the hunger and thirst for life that we carry within us. Jesus is not yet speaking of the Eucharist but of himself as the WORD come down from heaven. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). We can then truthfully pray like the crowd in the gospel: “Lord, give us this bread always,” the Bread that is you, the Word of the Father, come down from Heaven!

Fr. Manuel João Pereira Correia MCCJ
Verona, August 2024

The true Bread of life: beyond the outward appearance

A commentary on John 6, 24-35

We go on Reading John’s chapter sixth, which we began to read last Sunday about the sign of abundant bread. Well, from one Sunday to another we jump over a part that speaks about Jesus who disappears from the view of the satisfied crowd, crossing over to the other side of the Lake, and people looking from Him feverishly. What we read today is precisely the answer Jesus gives to people’s search. And in that answer John explains to us the faith of those first disciples in Jesus as the true living Bread.

To understand this answer, I propose a few brief reflections on the various and inter-connected meanings of bread the biblical tradition:

1. Bread (nourishment) sustains our physical life
There’s an experience among the first ones to mark the history of Israel: that they were able to feed themselves in an extraordinary way and in one of the most difficult moments of their march towards the Promised Land, when in the desert there was no food around. We all know the story of the “mana”; we do not know what exactly happened, though scholars have their theories about its physical feasibility. But the important thing is that whatever happened allowed the people to survive physically and that Israel always saw in that extraordinary experience the presence of the providing God.

I think that something similar happens to us many a time, even if not so extraordinary: When in despair, we find a job that allows to keep up the family, our business starts to go well, we receive an unexpected help, overcame a serious sickness… On those cases we may think that fortune has smiled to us or that we were smart enough to merit that positive outcome… Or we may think that God is guiding history in our favour, using even fortune and our own hard work. This is what the Hebrews thought and what many simple people continue thinking today, with a faith that takes them beyond superficialities and appearances.

2. From Bread to the Word-Law
When Moses brought the Law to the people in the Sinai, then Israel made the experience that the Law was as big a gift as the physical nourishment in the desert. With the Law the people could organize themselves, make progress, find a way forward in the many moments of doubt, and find harmony, happiness and sense. So little by little Israel began to apply to the Law the same meaning of salvation that had given to the bread in the desert: “not only on bread do human beings live, buy also on any word that comes out of God’s mouth”.

I think that we make an equal experience, individually and as communities. Sometimes we seem to despise the value of laws, but we know that a good Law makes a nation better. Without laws, a nation falls down on anarchy and usually that situation favours the powerful and violent against the poor and peaceful. So to have a good law (or a personal project of life) is as important as to have nourishment.

3. From the Law to the Word-Wisdom
But Law is not the unique manifestation of that divine wisdom that was guiding the people. There were also the prophets, psalmists, and poets, philosophers from other cultures, religious and political, leaders, wise old men and women… Every manifestation of wisdom was considered, together with the Law, as BREAD for the spirit.

We too need to be nourished by every type of wisdom that humanity produces through science and philosophy, religions and arts…Every positive thinking, every luminous word can help us to live better.

4. From the Word-Wisdom to Jesus Christ
The disciples’ experience with Jesus is wat is explained in today’s gospel: The bread that nourishes in the desert is no more than an image of Jesus as the true Bread that nourishes our spiritual life. His words, his nearness to sick people and sinners, his entire person is like the Bread in the desert, the Law of Moses, the highest Wisdom of humanity. In Him we find the fullness of that Life that God wants for all his children.

Certainly, we all want our basic need (bread, dress, and roof) covered and Jesus –as the Church today- worries and cares about these basic needs, but He does not remain there; He invite sus to eat the true Bread of Word-Wisdom-Love of God made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.

To accept this, to “eat” it and make it be part of our life, it’s to open ourselves to a deeper life, able to overcome whatever desert we’ll have to cross.

Fr. Antonio Villarino
Bogotá

BREAD OF ETERNAL LIFE
by José Antonio Pagola

Why does Jesus hold our interest after 20 centuries? What can we expect of him? What can he give to support men and women of our time? Is he perhaps going to solve the problems of today’s world? The Gospel of John speaks of a very interesting dialogue that Jesus holds with a crowd on the shores of Lake Galilee.

The day before, they have shared a surprising and free meal with Jesus. They have eaten bread until they were filled. How would they just allow him to walk away? What they look for is that Jesus repeat his action and again feed them for free. They aren’t thinking about anything else.

Jesus upsets them with an unexpected proposition: «Do not work for food that goes bad, but work for food that endures for eternal life». But how would we not be worried about our daily bread? Bread is indispensible for life. We need it and ought to work so that no one ever lacks it. Jesus knows that. Bread is number one. Without eating we can’t subsist. That’s why he’s so worried about the hungry and the beggars, who don’t receive from the rich even the crumbs that fall from their tables. That’s why he speaks ill of the foolish landowners who store up grain without thinking of the poor. That’s why he teaches his followers to ask the Father every day for bread for all God’s children.

But Jesus wants to awaken in them a different kind of hunger. He speaks to them of the bread that doesn’t only satisfy hunger for one day, but can satisfy the hunger and thirst for life that exists in the human heart. We must never forget it. Within us is a hunger for justice for all people, a hunger for freedom, peace, truth. Jesus presents himself as that Bread that comes to us from the Father not to fill us with food, but «to give life to the world».

This Bread that comes down from God «gives life eternal». The food we eat each day keeps us alive for years, but comes the time when that food can’t defend us from death. It’s useless to keep on eating. It can’t give us a life that’s greater than death.

Jesus presents himself as «bread of eternal life». Each one of us needs to decide how we want to live and how we want to die. But those who call ourselves followers of Jesus need to know that to believe in Christ is to nourish an unprecedented power in us, to begin to live in a way that doesn’t end in our death. Simply speaking, to follow Jesus is to enter into the mystery of death, sustained by his resurrecting power.

When they heard his words, those people of Capernaum cried out from the depths of their hearts: «Sir, give us that bread always». With our wavering faith, we sometimes don’t dare to ask for such a thing. Perhaps we only worry about the food for each day. And sometimes just for ourselves alone.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf

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