First Reading – Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 78:3-4, 23-24, 25, 54
Second Reading – Ephesians 4:17, 20-24
Bread, of course, is the recurring theme throughout the readings for this Sunday.
The first reading opens with the story of God’s miraculous provision of quail and manna, a substance described as providing the Israelites their “fill of bread.” This bread kept the Israelites alive during their sojourn in the desert after being freedom from slavery in Egypt during the Exodus.
In the Gospel, Jesus refers to this legacy and presents himself as “the bread of life,” a striking claim given that manna was the bread that literally provided life to the Israelites when they faced starvation in the desert. Knowing his audience would be familiar with this story, Jesus implicitly stresses that manna may have saved lives, but those who ate it still knew death (Moses, of course, being the paradigmatic example—see Deuteronomy 34). His point is that there is still a fullness of life that only God can offer, and that God is offering that fullness through Jesus Christ himself.
Given the links, and contrasts, between these two readings, what does it really mean for Jesus to proclaim, “I am the bread of life?” What does it mean to have life via Christ, as distinct from the life provided by manna in the desert?
The promise of life in Jesus’s bread of life discourse seems to encompass two things. First, there is clearly an invitation to new life (see John 10:10), or better a new way of life. This week’s second reading gives a sense of what this more abundant way of life can entail.
“You must no longer live as the Gentiles do,” the Letter to the Ephesians proclaims, suggesting a change in one’s way of life. In case anyone missed the invitation, the author stresses, “you should put away the old self of your former way of life,” explaining that Christians are called to reject sin and thereby to “put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.”
Jesus’s promise to provide the bread of life if thus first and foremost an invitation to conversion. It is an opportunity to turn away from the darkness of sin and to recommit oneself to doing what is right.
On this level, I am reminded of a beautiful story in Fr. Greg Boyle’s memoir, Tattoos on the Heart. Early in the book, Fr. Boyle recounts the story of a former gang member who worked with Homeboy Industries to leave behind his drug dealing, resulting in a new legitimate job. The job, in Fr. Boyle’s account, was not anything high-paying—in fact, it clearly offered less money than the man had made in the gang—but the man was ecstatic for his new way of life. He realized that he was living in a new, virtuous way, and it literally made him alive in a way he had never been when he had the resources that provided more fully for his physical needs.
This story, for me, speaks to the shifts from the life—literal, as sustenance—provided by manna and the life—more figurative, as abundance—promised by Jesus. We are similarly invited to move from simply striving to make a living to truly living a life by putting our trust in God and enjoying the freedom of rejecting an old life of sin.
The second aspect of Jesus’s presentation of himself as the bread of life can be found in the Eucharistic links. Catholics, of course, see Jesus’s promise of the bread of life as a very Eucharistic image, because the Catholic doctrine of the real presence in the Eucharist means that Catholics are literally able to partake of this “true bread from heaven” at Mass. This conviction has been on full display throughout this year of Eucharistic revival.
According to Catholic sacramental theology, the Eucharist, as a Sacrament, is supposed to do something. This is the impact of the Catholic understanding of sacraments as efficacious signs of God’s grace (CCC 1131). Traditional Eucharistic theology explains that the thing that the Eucharist does—the “res tantum” in technical terms—is create communion, or unity, among all those who participate in this sacrament.
For me, in this polarized world where we are quick to find divisions and enflame them, the Eucharistic call to communion, and the Catholic conviction that this the lasting change effected through the Sacrament, is a profound invitation to a new fullness of life. It asks us to throw off our “old self…corrupted through deceitful desires” so that we can find unity with others anew. Perhaps we can, like the Israelites, recall our absolute dependence on God to see that we are fundamentally all alike as human beings, and then forge new bonds of trust and unity. Then we might truly experience the promise and gift of the bread of life.
