Here we are at the beginning of August in a few short weeks we will be welcoming people from all parts of the world to the world meeting of families that will take place in Dublin. We will also have the joy of welcoming Pope Francis for the closing events as we celebrate the Joy of the Gospel as the family of the Church in Ireland and the world.
Our Gospel reading this weekend has as its focus food, food for the body that is bread and food for the soul that is Jesus the Bread of life. Jesus tells the people that they are only following him because they have enjoyed the food that physically satisfies them; they should work, he says, for the food that leads on to eternal life. The one thing which earns this food is believing in the one God has sent. The Galileans promptly ask Jesus for a sign to aid their belief in him – a sign like the manna their fathers ate in the desert.
Jesus points out that it was God, not Moses, who supplied the manna in the dessert, he compares himself to the God who now gives them bread from heaven. Jesus declares that he himself is the bread of life, the bread come down from heaven. Whoever believes in him will never be hungry. Yet there are so many people in our world who suffer from hunger, physical hunger for so many do not even have a wee bit of bread to eat or water to drink. Also there is a great spiritual hunger, there are many people out there who have lost their faith and there are also many people searching for faith who have yet to find it. I think that in our day and age with all its possibilities for so many things both good and bad we need to be the bread of life for all those who are out there who have lost the faith or those who are searching and many people are . What does it mean for you and me to be the Bread of Life to others? It means two things:
(1) Feeding the hungry through our donations to organisations that bring physical relief to the people who need it in the world whoever they are wherever they might be.
(2) It also means that we are a light to others showing that God the Father has sent Jesus from heaven to be our food, our strength, our hope, and our joy as we live our lives as Christian people who believe in God.
There are so many people in the world that are hungry for the bread of life that Jesus tells us about how will you and I feed their hunger in the days ahead will they make the choice to accept this great gift of God ?
Fullerton T 