Gospel (Jn 6:35-40)
Jesus said to them:
“I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Commentary
In this part of the discourse on the Bread of Life, Jesus tries to help his listeners take a leap of faith. He has fed them with earthly bread and now he wants them to hunger for heavenly bread.
The Master wants to direct the crowd’s attention towards what is definitive, towards eternal life. They wanted Jesus to guarantee their daily bread, but He helps them see that true security lies in putting our life in His hands and letting ourselves be led towards eternity: “This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”
How much effort we put into trying to achieve earthly security! But often we discover how fragile this is. What we achieved with so much sacrifice can be lost due to a sudden turn of fortune and, what is worse, we ourselves can collapse when we see that what cost us so much effort to achieve has vanished.
Jesus does not want us to lose heart in the face of life’s setbacks. That is why He remains with us in the Eucharist, so that our heart can rest securely in Him, with our eyes set on heaven as we walk here on earth.
The Church calls the Eucharist the “pledge of future glory” (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1402). Jesus himself is obliged, so to speak, to open the doors of heaven to us if we have received Him with devotion during our life. And this is the only things that matters in the end. Our successes or failures, changes in plans, etc., are all relative. In the Eucharist, however, we find eternal life.