07/06/2026
T H I S W E E K . . . . . . . .
The invitation of the Gospel and its challenge is to enter into real relationship with Jesus, Risen from the Dead. We “come to him” and we “believe in him” and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we allow Jesus, not just to enter our lives, but to pervade and fill our lives completely. In this way we can truly be said to ‘feed on him’. More than that, as long as we ‘feed on him’ his life grows within us. Eating his body and drinking his blood means ‘filling ourselves with his life’. The whole point of this Gospel is spiritual and not physical. In fact, Jesus is trying to drag those listening to him away from the ‘immediate’ physical bread to the more important spiritual bread – himself. Not once but three times he tells them, “I am the bread of life…” It is in our hearts that we feed on Jesus. As we ‘come to know him’ and then ‘believe in him’ we draw him more and more into our lives until he fills us, becoming all in all. The great mystics over the ages have understood this, and have shared it with us in very simple, yet utterly profound words. St. Teresa of Avila expressed it like this: “You should remain with so good a friend as long as you can. If you grow accustomed to having him present at your side…… you will not be able, as they say, to get away from him…… you will find him everywhere.” This is precisely the message of this Gospel: Not physically filling our bellies, but feasting on Jesus, the Bread of life, letting him nourish and sustain us, letting him gradually fill us so that we “grow accustomed to having him present at our side”, always there within us, until we wake one day and discover that we cannot “get away from him; that he is everywhere.”
Being filled by Jesus in this way is not for the faint-hearted. It is a daunting prospect, hugely challenging, calling for great courage, great faith and a great desire to come to know him. St. Teresa makes it sound easy, which is why she has ‘St’ before her name! I find it just a little terrifying. The ‘immediate’ will always call to us with a loud voice. Like a spoiled child it will demand our attention, require our time and expect instant gratification. It will offer us quick answers which may satisfy us for a while, but then the hunger returns and we run in search of more ‘immediate’ things to interest us, occupy us, fill us…. and the cycle repeats over and over. The invitation of Jesus in this Gospel reading; the challenge of Jesus in this Gospel reading, is to move beyond the immediate and recognise that the man who stood among us in the person of Jesus truly does offer our world something so much greater and more wonderful. ‘Eat me and drink me’ he says to us. ‘Fill yourself with me and little by little, one step at a time, I too will fill you. No more ‘immediate’, just an inner peace and joy that cannot be lost and the rises to eternal life.
The response of Jesus, no doubt with a certain amount of frustration and some annoyance, was to resort to what we might call ‘shock tactics’. He would force them to hear him, even if they didn’t like what they heard.
There is no doubt that Jesus, in this Gospel reading, intended to antagonise those listening, it was a strategy chosen by him to force them away from the purely physical bread they were looking for, to choosing him, the spiritual bread which leads to eternal life.
It is no accident that he chose quite emotive words and phrases, or that he repeats them again and again as he speaks to them. Repeated use of the words ‘flesh’ and ‘blood’ were intended to shock. Add the phrase “eat my…” and “drink my…” at the start of almost every sentence and they cannot avoid what Jesus is saying to them: ‘Move beyond wanting a free meal, physical bread which does not last, and look at what I am offering – myself, the spiritual bread which will sustain, fulfil and give you eternal life.’
Fr. Brian Maher OMI
