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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
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Gospel text (Jn 6:30-35): So they said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father 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.” So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life..."

John 6: Law has become Person

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today Jesus’ "I am" resounds again. He has just asked them to work for the food that remains unto eternal life. But man hungers for more. He needs something more than the manna of the desert. The gift that feeds man as man must be greater, must be on a wholly different level.

Is the Torah this other food? It is in some sense true that in and through the Torah, man can make God's will his food. So the Torah is "bread" from God then; and yet it shows us only God's back, so to speak, it is a "shadow". «For the bread of God is that which comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world» (Jn 6:33). As the audience still does not understand, Jesus repeats himself even more unambiguously: «I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty» (Jn 6:35).

—The law has become a Person!