Sunday Meditation: The Bread of Life

Last week, the Gospel reading had Jesus feeding the multitude.  After giving them this incredible sign, some dodo this week asks him, “What sign can you?” 

 

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there,

they themselves got into boats

and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

And when they found him across the sea they said to him,

"Rabbi, when did you get here?"

Jesus 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.

Do 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."

So they said to him,

"What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"

Jesus answered and said to them,

"This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."

So they said to him,

"What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?

What can you do?

Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:

He gave them bread from heaven to eat."

So Jesus said to them,

"Amen, amen, I say to you,

it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;

my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven

and gives life to the world."

 

So they said to him,

"Sir, give us this bread always."

Jesus said to them,

"I am the bread of life;

whoever comes to me will never hunger,

and whoever believes in me will never thirst."

~Jn 6:24-35

Bishop Barron gives one of the great sermons on this passage. 

Everything disappears.  Nothing endures.  The Fourth of July fireworks – poof!  Gone.  Baseball game, as much as I hate to say it, the game ends, the season ends.  The players I grew up with, I will always remember, but they are gone now, most of them to their eternal reward. 

 

Sunday Meditation: "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."

 

Of course, today’s hymn has to be John Michael Talbot “I Am the Bread of Life.”

 

So lovely.  This is another song I had thought original with Talbot, but it was actually composed by Sr. Suzanne Toolan for the Sisters of Mercy back in 1964.  I found this lovely video on Sr. Suzanne’s life.

 

Thank you Sister Suzanne.