This Bread Is My Flesh

 John 6:44-51

I Am The Bread Of Life

⁴⁴ “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. ⁴⁶ No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. ⁵⁰ But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

We continue further into John 6, often referred to as "The Eucharistic Discourse" as Jesus explains what he means by "the Bread of Life". How does one grasp the notion that bread can become the Body and Blood, Flesh and Divinity of Jesus? Yet, Jesus clearly states that this is the gift that he is leaving us so that he can be even more present to us after he returned to heaven than he was while walking with us on the earth. We can have even more intimate union with him than if we were sitting on a grassy hillside listening to him preach, or sitting at a meal with him. Such is his love for us that he wants a union with us by being ingested into our bodies and thus becoming part of our very being as does the food we eat.  What a gift! Some may find it hard to swallow (yikes...pardon the pun!), but this is what Jesus is explaining as clearly as possible in this short passage.  May our prayer and reflection on his words today give us a greater understanding and appreciation of this gift and motivate us to receive it as often as we can...even daily!

Bro. Rene

Thank you, Jesus, for the this gift which allows us such intimate union with you.  May I take advantage of it as often as I can.