Dear Parishioners,
Again we pause and take a break from Mark’s gospel and listen to John’s. John is the only gospel writer to leave out Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. Instead, John gives us 45 verses of Jesus referring to himself as the Bread of Life and what it means for our lives—namely that it is Jesus who give us real life.
The opening verse of today’s gospel uses an unusual word “murmur”. “The Jews started to murmur in protest because Jesus claimed ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven’.” Murmur means rumble or complain and was first used in the Book of Exodus. The Israelites in the desert without water grumble and complain to Moses. Life is hard and they aren’t happy with it. As always, God comes through and leads them to a place with 12 springs and 70 palm trees. So, their murmuring stops until they run out of food and complain to Moses again. So God provides quail to quench their hunger and grumbling.
Human nature often leads to complaining when difficulties or hardships occur. It was that way with both the Jews of Moses’ time and those of Jesus’ time. For the latter, it was hard to believe that a man could actually have come down from heaven and be the bread of life and that eating this bread would lead to eternal life.
Hopefully, we have learned that grumbling, complaining, or murmuring is not the way to go when we encounter any kind of hardship. God loves us and is with us. Let us turn to him for support to help us weather whatever hardships come our way.
Fr. Carl
