Daily Gospel Reflection

Explore the Controversy

Welcome to your daily gospel reflection, where we're exploring the radical and relevant nature of Jesus' life and teachings, how they impact us today. Each day, we're just looking for a word or a phrase or an idea to anchor our life. Let's take a listen to today's Gospel, which is from John 6:44-51. The Jews then murmured at him because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven?'" Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except Him who is from God. He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manor in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread which I shall give you for the life of the world is my flesh."

So we call this series Daily Gospel Reflections. We call this series radical and relevant. And of course, here we have one of the most controversial discourses in the Gospels, and it is the discourse about the Eucharist. And it was a radical teaching 2,000 years ago. It's a radical teaching today. It's a relevant teaching, as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago because our spiritual hunger is still vast and insatiable. And our attempts to feed this hunger with all manner of worldly things, which fail every time, and we know they will fail the moment we set out. And yet we continue to repeat this pattern of looking for things in all the wrong places. And Jesus says to us again today, "I am the bread of life." I think one of the powerful things that struck me in doing the research for 33 days to Eucharistic glory is just that overwhelming phrase, "Those who believe don't leave." 50 million American Catholics left the church in the last 30 years. What do we know is universally true? They don't believe in the true presence of Jesus and the Eucharist. And so I hear this discourse, this bread of life discourse, and I continue to hear this great challenge to find new and innovative ways to lead people to Jesus and the Eucharist and to give people a powerful encounter with the bread of life, which we desperately need, and we know others desperately need. What word jumped out at you today? What phrase jumped out at you today? What idea jumped out at you today? Whatever it was, anchor your day in that word phrasal idea. Have an amazing day. Remember, be bold, be Catholic.