19th Sunday of the Year – B
Kings 19: 4-8; Psalm 33; Eph. 4: 30, 5:2; John 6: 41-51
Read: Jesus said: “Stop complaining to each other. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise that person on the last day. It is written in the prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God’. Therefore, everyone who listens to the Father, and has learnt from Him, comes to me. Not that anybody has seen the Father, except who was begotten by God and has thus seen the Father. In all truth I tell you, everybody who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert and they are dead; but this is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that a person may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that has come down from heaven. Anyone who east this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world”.
Reflect: We all know how much insistence is made on the need to maintain social distancing because of the pandemic. And so should it be! But Jesus does not want us to keep away from him. There is no need for us to maintain any distance from him. He tells us: “Nobody can come to me unless the Father who sent me does not draw him towards me”.
God gives everybody the opportunity to get to know Him: “And everyone will be taught by God”. The teaching that will be given to everybody by God is his spirit, that divine push that works in every person, that leads everyone forward in the avenues of life. Unfortunately, not always and not everybody welcomes this Spirit; not everyone learns its teaching, nor does everyone obey its promptings. It is only “everyone who listens to my Father and has learnt from Him” who comes to Jesus.
The question that we need to ask ourselves is: Do I allow myself to learn from Christ’s Spirit, or am I, like what the Jews did in the time of Christ, refusing “the bread from heaven” and choosing the bread that leads to death? Jesus invites us to absorb his teaching as bread, so as to have a direction in life.
Pray: Lord, draw me anew towards that which you sent from heaven, the Bread that gives life. Lord I wish to obey you. I wish to wake up, to eat and thus to continue walking the road that leads me to You.
Act: “Taste and see how good is the Lord”. Thank God for the many times that he showed you the way and His goodness. Pray for your family and for your friends so that they too will discover His goodness.