THE WORD
Ac 8,26-40 / Jn 6,44-51
[Jesus said to the crowd,] “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will
live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
IN OTHER WORDS
Some years ago, at the approach of a severe typhoon in my seaside parish, fifty-seven families who lived on a spit of land, which was almost completely sand, sheltered in the parish buildings.
With the DSWD, we tried to make them comfortable. Mostly friendly and good humoured, they cooperated. Only a few complained about food, especially.
When we cleaned up the next day after the people had left, we found some DSWD utensils had disappeared. Blame was hurled on the village people but I trusted most of them and knew they didn’t steal. Most of them in fact were upset about what had happened.
In the desert, the people seem to have been in the habit of complaining to God who more than once had to give them a temporary dole-out in their particular situation. They complained even about the manna. They rebelled, in spite of the evidence that God was looking after them, as shown in the manna. Finally, the whole generation that had come out of Egypt died in the wilderness.
Now things are different: Jesus is giving to us all more than just emergency bread. He says himself,
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
Jesus is the Bread, not contingency food given us almost on a dole-out basis, but rather our very living Bread, and he who continues to give meaning and direction to us every day of our lives. If we come to Jesus we will not die in the desert, we will live.
- Fr. Alan Meechan, SVD | Naujan Or. Mindoro
The Word in other words 2016
An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.
