Last Friday's gospel reading (John 6:1-15) was about Jesus multiplying the loaves to feed the people by the lake shore. In today's gospel reading, we hear Jesus discoursing about the Bread of Life in the synagogue in Capernaum. Here Jesus is giving himself to the believers as bread that leads to eternal life.

The Bread of Life is unlike the bread we bake, or even the manna which came from heaven that the people ate in the desert; we eat, but will certainly become hungry again, and eventually no food can nourish us as we age and die. Life is not of our making.

The Bread of Life is God's gift to us, sent to us in the form, not of something, but someone - Jesus Christ. That true bread communicates eternal life to us. We who believe that Jesus becomes our bread when we eat his body in the sacrament of the Eucharist are sharing in the life of the Risen Christ transformed by the Spirit. For that reason it gives life (v.63).

We are what we eat because what we eat transforms us. The Eucharist we receive helps us grow and mature in the life of God.