Reflection for Sunday August 11, Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: John 6:41-51

Gospel: John 6:41-51

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven, ” and they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 

Jesus answered and said to them, “Stop murmuring among yourselves. 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.”

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Reflection:   

How can Jesus be the bread that gives life? This is very hard to believe for a non-believer. But for those who have faith, they know that Jesus is indeed the Bread of Life.

The Jews were protesting Jesus’ pronouncement that He is the Bread of Life that came down from heaven (John 6:41). They knew Jesus well as the son of Joseph and Mary, and some of them perhaps grew up with Him. How, then, could He become the Bread of Life?

Faith and actual experience are what move us to believe in Jesus' sacred declaration that He is the Bread that gives life. Why do we yearn to receive Jesus during Holy Communion? It is because our love and faith in Him compel us to do so.

Every time we submit to our faith's desire to partake of Jesus in the Sacrament of Holy Communion/Eucharist, we also obey His desire to dwell in us and be with us. The Jews did not submit to this desire of Jesus, which is why they did not believe in Him.

Each and every one of us undergoes an extraordinary experience whenever we partake of Jesus' Body and Blood. However, many of us no longer notice this because we have begun to treat this profound experience as something ordinary.  

Whenever we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, it is not just our desire to be one with our Lord and Master, but rather it is Jesus who desires us to be one with Him. It is Jesus who calls each and every one of us to receive Him so that He may dwell in us, transforming and blessing us in the process.

So, what is your responsibility? You must share the miracle of the Bread of Life, share what you know about Jesus, even if it is limited, and allow Jesus to transform you according to His will. – Marino J. Dasmarinas