GOSPEL POWER |APRIL 23, 2021

FRIDAY | Saint George, Martyr / Saint Adalbert, Bishop and Martyr

3rd Week of Easter | Gospel: Jn 6: 52 – 59

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

REFLECTION

Failure to trust the Revealer results in a distorted grasp  of the revelation. Had the Jews trusted Jesus enough to  lead them across the language barrier, they would have  realized that when Jesus was talking about his flesh as food and his  blood as drink, he was actually pointing to the offering of his own life  for the salvation of the world. Only by renouncing his earthly and perishable existence could Jesus offer us imperishable existence, which  is his life with the Father from all eternity. His death is the necessary  passageway — the bridge that all of us must cross from transient earthly life to eternal life in our heavenly homeland.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus, help us to enter into the language of mystery and to trust  your revelation even if our minds cannot grasp it completely. Amen.