The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time                                                               1031 in Hymnal

First Reading — Exodus 16:2-4,12-13

Second Reading — Ephesians 4:17,20-24

Gospel — John 6:24-35

A Gospel Reflection :

All four Gospels relate the miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, which comes immediately before the passage we hear in today’s Gospel, taken from St John. This text begins what is known as the ’Bread of Life Discourse’ (John 6. 22–59), which we start today and will continue reading over the next two Sundays. It is the morning after the night before, and the people go across the lake looking for Jesus – because, as he says, ‘they have eaten all the bread they can eat’. Through dialogue, Jesus helps them to see that it is the Father who has always provided for them – a theme reinforced in the First Reading and Psalm. Jesus also reveals something new to them: he himself is the sign they seek. Through his gift of living bread, he is offering them renewal of their minds and the ability to walk in the way of goodness and truth (Second Reading). This week, let’s give time for dialogue with the Lord that we, too, might respond to his desire to give himself totally to us, so that our deepest hunger and thirst may be satisfied. (From Pathways to God)