I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE: The Call to Faith

It's April 9, and this day's Gospel shows us Jesus telling His listeners that He is the Bread of Life. People were looking for him after He had just fed 5,000 men with the five loaves and 2 fish, and He noticed that they wanted to make Him King. So He kept distance from them, but they searched for Him. In their dialogue, Jesus tells them to do the work God wants: Believe in the One He sent them. They say that Moses gave them bread, the manna in the desert, so what sign has Jesus got for them? Jesus tells them that it wasn't Moses who gave them bread, it was God the Father Himself. He thus says: "I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me willnever thirst...Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day..."

This dialogue reminds me of television commercials or advertisements showing a mother worried about her child who doesn't eat but only loves to play. One particular ad says "When Sabina was this age, she only loved to eat hotdog, hotdog, hotdog. If not, she wouldn't eat. It's good I shifted to ...(the milk brand)." This ad seems to carry with it a message which by analogy we can use in the Father's giving us His Son as Bread of Life. Like a mother, God has always searched for and done ways so that we His creatures would live. Since we are all His creatures and He created us in His image and likeness, hence we can see some of our own actions and values contain in them the divine intention and plan. His giving us His Son as Bread of Life is really to ensure that all who go to Him in faith has life. This thus reminds me the Church's constant running back to the table of the Eucharist from which it gets its life. Now I understand why the Church has such a long life. May we live faithfully our faith in Jesus.

God bless