Today’s Reflection
Gospel: Jn 6: 51-58
June 11, 2023 | Sunday

Today’s Gospel

I am the living bread from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever. The bread I shall give is my flesh, and I will give it for the life of the world.” The Jews were arguing among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. My flesh is really food, and my blood is truly drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood, live in me, and I in them. Just as the Father, who is life, sent me, and I have life from the Father, so whoever eats me will have life from me. This is the bread from heaven; not like that of your ancestors, who ate and later died. Those who eat this bread will live forever.”

The Catholic Church maintains without any compromise that the bread and wine offered and consecrated in the Holy Mass are the real presence of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a lesson upheld by the apostles and the earliest Christians. The reality of being able to partake of the body and blood of Christ in the breaking of the bread on Sundays, aside from being able to participate and listen to the Liturgy of the Word, gave them the motivation to participate in eucharistic celebrations despite the dangers of persecution and death penalty. The discourses of the Gospel of John on the Bread of Life, from which we heard some parts today, are the evangelist’s reminiscence and reflections on the teachings of Jesus concerning His body and blood offered and received during every masses. Like the rest of the teachings in the Church, we are invited to cherish this doctrine with faith, for this doctrine is a gift handed on to us from Christ, through His apostles, and practiced and witnessed by Christians throughout the centuries. /Vulnerasti, 2023