Tuesday, May 06, 2014
3rd Week of Easter
1st Reading: Acts 7:51–8:1
Gospel: Jn 6:30–35
The people said to Jesus, “Show us miraculous signs, that we may see and believe you. What sign do you perform? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert; as Scripture says: They were given bread from heaven to eat.”
Jesus then said to them, “Truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. The bread God gives is the One who comes from heaven and gives life to the world.” And they said to him, “Give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall never be hungry, and whoever believes in me shall never be thirsty.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
While food is a basic necessity, it is not the be-all and end-all of humanity. “Man does not live on bread alone,” Jesus reminded himself when he was tempted to make bread out of stone. However, human beings have often descended to the level of the irrational, as if they exist only for food just like any other animal. “The discovery of a new dish”, wrote Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, “does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star”. This statement is an exaggeration, we surmise. But exaggerations are at times necessary to absorb the realities we fail to recognize.
The attitude of the Jews illustrates our point. Look at what they used to measure Jesus up when they asked: “What sign do you perform? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert…” They were sort of bragging about their connection to a great prophet who had the power to provide their ancestors with manna in the desert. Was it all that they could brag about? Jesus patiently raised the level of the conversation from perishable bread to “the bread that gives life”. When they were convinced that they should work instead for that kind of bread, Jesus offered himself as he declared: “I am the Bread of Life”.
This Bread of life is still within our reach at our Eucharistic altars. But how pathetic that during our Eucharistic celebrations we settle for less when God can give us more! We ask for longevity, for example, when God can give us eternity; we ask for material wealth when God can give us good health; we ask to prevail over an enemy when it is noble to ask for the gift of humility; we ask for youthful beauty when the better thing to ask for is profound spirituality. In other words, we prefer to wallow when we are meant to soar even higher than could a swallow.
While temporal things, like bread, are basic to our earthly existence, they should not define us. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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