John 6.30-35 – Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
What does bread represent? It is basically the essential food of man’s life. To say that someone gives us bread means to say that he gives us what we need to live. Jesus, in today’s Gospel, takes this image to the end and states: «I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will not be hungry and whoever believes in me will not be thirsty.” With these words he tells us that only God can truly satiate the deep hunger we carry inside. In fact, there are many “foods” in our lives: relationships, successes, securities, experiences.
But none of these can fill us completely. There always remains a lack, a thirst, a desire that cannot be quenched. Only the love of God takes this hunger seriously and fills it. And God responded to this hunger by sending his Son. Jesus is not just someone who talks about God, but he is the concrete gift of God to man. He is the true nourishment. These words take us directly back to the Eucharist. This is not a simple memory, nor a symbolic representation of the Last Supper. It is a living, present event. It is Christ himself who continues to give himself as bread, who continues to nourish our life.
Participating in the Eucharist means allowing yourself to be reached by this gift. It means allowing God to enter our hunger and transform it. For this reason the Eucharist is not an external gesture, but something that changes life from the inside. It is not a religious habit, but a real encounter. And perhaps the question that the Gospel gives us today is precisely this: what are we really feeding ourselves? Many things depend on this answer.
