" 'I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.'

"The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.' "

Homily:

"I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."

When we see the Eucharistic Bread, we believe that it is Jesus who is there before us: such is our faith in the Eucharist. We are thus in the presence of the Resurrected One, He who has conquered death and who is now in Heaven, in the Glory of the Father! Is this not wonderful? Are we not incredibly fortunate? Are we not favored by the Lord? Could we ever have imagined such a marvel on our own? I do not think so... Only God can have a Heart so full of Love that he invites us in this way to contemplate him with the eyes of faith, for our eternal happiness, for his own Glory, forever and ever!

When we see Jesus Eucharist, we are already eating him, for our eyes touch him through our glance, full of love and faith: already we enter into communion with the Resurrected One! To see, to look at, to eat: all of these are one. For if we eat the Bread of Life, we live of the very life of God, we are already in Heaven, and we see God with the eyes of faith, as we await to see him as he is, face to face, in the Light of Glory! To see and to eat, these are one. Do we not say: "to devour with one's eyes", or in a less honorable sense: "to have eyes bigger than one's stomach"?

But let us not forget: He whom we see, the Resurrected One, has undergone the suffering of his Passion, he did not rise up to Heaven without having gone through death and the resurrection. He whom we see bears the stigmata of the cruel torture of the Cross: truly, when Jesus shows himself to his creature, even under the appearance of the Bread of Life, no one can forget all that the Lord has suffered for him! Let us think about what Jesus said: "The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." It is a bread that is given, delivered, one might even say abandoned to the mercy of men...

"The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.' "

What is easier to believe: that something that we can eat, namely bread, is truly a man, the Man-God; or that this man who is truly present before us is something that we can eat, which will give us eternal Life? The answer is simple: as these two things are identical, one is just as easy or as difficult to believe as the other! But, is the virtue of faith so difficult to practice? Here, the answer is double: faith is easy to practice at first, when we receive the grace to believe, for the grace of God is all-powerful; but then, to continue to believe until the end, it is sometimes difficult, for, to persevere in the faith, we must pray, we must pray very much, in order to obtain even more grace from God!

"He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me."

When Jesus speaks of the Bread of Life, he always makes reference to "the last day", for the Eucharist feeds our soul and already resurrects our body. Of course, we do not see this resurrection of our body. We do not see it because we have not yet reached "the last day". But this resurrection is quite real. How could we be living the eternal life without already being resurrected with Jesus? For Jesus said: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life." This is in the present tense! He who communicates of the Bread of Life "has eternal life", he is already resurrected, body and soul. This is a Mystery, the Mystery of Faith!

He who truly eats the Bread of Life, with a pure and living faith, animated by a true charity towards God and towards men, that person obtains eternal life from God, for he has already reached the end of his life, having renounced everything, having even renounced living another moment on the earth. For faith truly requires this: that we renounce all things in order to have All, that we renounce all that is created in order to have He who is Uncreated: God! To lose all in order to have All, to die to all in order to live to All! Passion and Resurrection in communion with the Son of God, who died and is risen: this is the life of he who believes in the Bread of Life!

"This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."

There is a time "before Jesus", and there is a time "after Jesus". Ever since the day "when the time had fully come" (Gal. 4:4), and when the Word became flesh in the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, everything has changed in the universe: forever, Life has come into the world, in order that the world might be saved! Either you eat or you do not eat, either you believe or you do not believe: upon this depends your eternal salvation...

May the Most Blessed Virgin Mary help us all to believe always in Jesus the Bread of Life for the salvation of the world! May the Holy Spirit be given to us in our communion with the Son of God, for the Glory of the Father, through Mary!

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