I am the Bread of Life

We prepare for the journey

Scripture 

Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person 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 the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ 

(John 6:32-51, but I recommend that you read all of John 6)

Reflection 

When I was 22 years old, I walked from Paris to Chartres Cathedral on the weekend of Palm Sunday. The pilgrimage of 60 miles is a long-held tradition of French students to gather in faith and celebrate Holy Week in a profound way together. 

As I packed my backpack for the pilgrimage, the longest hike I’d ever taken, I was preoccupied by what I would eat. A vegetarian since high school, I was already used to the trouble of finding meals I could eat in a meat-based culture (and back then, the French were even more flummoxed than Americans by such strange eating habits). What if the dinners served en masse in small towns included nothing I could eat? What if I got hungry along the way, in the land of scarce snacks? I pictured myself collapsing into the cold stone churches where we’d sleep each night, dizzy from days of walking without enough to sustain me. 

Food was my fixation before I set out. I was certain there would not be enough.