This is the first of several Sunday Gospels where we contemplate Jesus’s teaching on the bread of life. It follows last week’s account of the feeding of the five thousand.
The First Reading tells us of the hungry, grumbling Israelites in the desert and the gift of manna that God sends them.
The Psalm echoes this event, ‘he gave them manna from heaven. Mere mortals ate the bread of angels’.
The message of the Second Reading, following the sections from Ephesians, links in with the new way of life demanded when we follow the discipleship of Jesus.
In the Gospel, the crowd have been searching for Jesus, perhaps wanting more of the physical bread he has given them. Jesus’s teaching appeals to their deeper, spiritual hunger.
In our prayer this week, we can turn to God, knowing that, whatever the situation, he will always provide for his people. May it lead us also to a greater appreciation of the Eucharist.