Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

May 2, 2017

The crowd said to Jesus:

"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 Jesus,
"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.”

I focus on our Gospel reading today from John 6:30-35. Jesus said to them I AM the Bread of LIFE; whoever comes to Jesus will never be hungry and whoever believes in Jesus will never thirst. The great I AM statement in this verse spoken by Jesus is a tremendously strong metaphor which expresses Jesus’ saving relationship toward the world. I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE is Jesus telling us that He is essential for life, not of the physical realm, but for the spiritual realm. The physical bread of this earth which we eat can grow mold and eventually be rotten and no one is able to eat from the loaf. However, Jesus is the spiritual bread that brings eternal life.

Believing in Jesus means placing our faith in Him that He is who he says He is, that He will do what He says he will do, and that He is the only one who can. Jesus tells us in Matthew 5, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” When Jesus guides us to come to Him and we will never hunger, and to those who believe in Him will never thirst, He is telling us that HE will satisfy our hunger and thirst to be made righteous in the sight of God.

What I do know for a fact is that when Christ died on the cross, he took the sins of all of us upon Himself and made atonement for them. Jesus satisfies our hunger and thirst for righteousness. HE is our Bread of Life.