Gospel: John 6:24-35

St Eusebius of Vercelli, bishop; and St Peter Julian Eymard, priest, not celebrated this year.

Eusebius, born in Sardinia about 300, became the first bishop in Vercelli (northern Italy), in the early 340s. He led his clergy to form a monastic community modelled on that of the Eastern cenobites. Hence the Augustinians honor him along with Augustine as their founder. He sought a solution to the Arian crisis at the synod of Milan (355). Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868) from Isère in the French Alps became a priest as a member of the Marist Fathers. Later he founded two religious institutes, the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament (for clerics) and the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, a contemplative congregation for women. One of his memorable sayings is, “You take communion to become holy, not because you already are.”

1st Reading: Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15

God feeds the Israelites in the desert by sending them manna and quails.

The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the desert. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this desert to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.

“I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’

In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the desert was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

2nd Reading: Epistle to the Ephesians 4:17, 20-24

Turn aside from an aimless pagan lifestyle and live in a spirit of goodness and truth.

Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Gospel: John 6:24-35

Jesus is the true bread from heaven, offering a life that will never end.

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”

Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. or it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'”

Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who 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.” 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 be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

The bread of purposeful living

One of the great masterpieces of fiction was the Spanish satire by Cervantes, about Don Quixote. In it we read how the absurdly chivalrous hero, followed by his squire Sancho Panza, set out to perform deeds of bravery and win the admiration of all the Spanish ladies. Quixote was so open to adventure that he decided to go wherever his horse Rosinante would lead him. But the horse, once given free rein, naturally returned to the place it knew best, its own stable. Too often perhaps, we find ourselves going the same way, doing the same thing, returning to the same haunts again and again, drifting aimlessly, or lured on by the novelty of sensationalism, or even carried away by the latest fashion in religion.

St Paul sees aimless living as heading nowhere. “I urge you in the name of the Lord,” he says, “not to go on living the aimless kind of life that pagans live.” In paganism, human weakness led to countless moral failures, and to indecency of every kind, often culminating in permanent spiritual collapse. But, says Paul, “if we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, until it has built itself up, in love” (4:15f). In other words, Christ must be felt as a living influence in the lives of all his true followers. The help of divine grace is always there for the asking. “Work for your salvation in fear and trembling,” the New Testament urges us, and then goes on, “It is God who gives you both the will and the ability to act, and so achieve his own purpose” (Phil 2:12f). We could not even begin to seek God, if he had not already found us.

On the other hand, if people are wrapped up only with trivial things and selfish pleasure-seeking, their understanding will be darkened, and, worse still, their hearts become insensitive to real values. This lapsing from our ideals will be gradual and barely noticeable, and nobody becomes decadent all at once. When people first become aware in their conscience that they are falling into bad habits, they may regard it with some regret. But if they ignore conscience and continue their merry way, inevitably there will come a time when conscience falls asleep, and they can sin without any feeling of guilt whatsoever. At that stage conscience has become incapable of discerning right from wrong.

The people who formed Christ’s audience along the lake shore were solely concerned with their immediate bodily needs. They were so enthusiastic about his multiplying of food that they wanted to make Jesus a king. They were totally blind to the spiritual aspect of the miracle, and the message he wanted to teach them with it. “Do not work for food that cannot last,” Jesus warned them, “but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you.”

With us too, if we are willing to follow Christ, but only on our own terms, we can be like them. If we feel he has let us down, we may turn our backs on him. This is not the response that draws Christ into our lives. We must seek our Lord for himself, and not for what we can get from him. The bread from heaven for us is the Eucharist, and the proper way to receive its blessing is to open ourselves to God’s love, given to us in the person of Jesus. Further, it leads us to show others as much understanding as we show ourselves. Unlike those who abandoned Jesus when no more bread was forthcoming, we must persevere as his faithful followers.