Daily Gospel Reflection
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April 28, 2020
The crowd said to Jesus, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who 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.”
They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Father Dan Swift, pastor of St. Mary of the Lakes Parish in Medford, New Jersey, was in St. Peter’s Square for Mother Teresa’s beatification in 2003. All around him, he remembers, hundreds and hundreds of people were trying to receive Communion, but they couldn’t get to a Eucharistic minister.
“I reached over the people in front of me and I pointed to my collar and I said to the priest, ‘Give me some hosts,’ and I was able to break those hosts into the greatest number of particles, and people were receiving just maybe a crumb,” he told Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate in 2015. “But whether it’s a whole host or a half a host, Jesus is Jesus.”
I love that image: Catholics clamoring for the Eucharist, Father Swift dividing and re-dividing the hosts so all could be fed with the bread of life.
Do I show that same sort of urgency for Jesus? Most of the time, I don’t. I try to satiate my hunger with other things that never truly satisfy: aimless Twitter scrolling, obsession with sports, bingeing TV shows on Netflix, pointless busyness at work, and lots of worrying.
Could I put my phone down and give the bread of life a chance to feed me? I’m tempted to see something like Eucharistic adoration as old-fashioned and boring. But in the few times I’ve done it, I have found that time spent in front of the Blessed Sacrament is never a waste. In that intentional quiet, by getting rid of the constant noise of distraction, I’m more likely to be able to hear God’s message from today’s Gospel: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Prayer
We give you thanks, Jesus, for your bountiful generosity. You fill us, the starving, with good things, and you know the hunger we have to know you more deeply. When our faith is weak, or when we demand a sign, send your Spirit to break through our daily routines in the form of bread and wine to remind us of the sacrifice and love we re-present and share in every time we are at Mass. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Even though he was born in a small village in the eastern part of France, St. Peter Chanel is the patron saint of Oceania because that is where he was martyred as a missionary.
Peter was born in 1803 in eastern France and was a shepherd boy until the family’s parish priest convinced Peter’s parents to let him attend the small school the priest had just opened. Peter was clearly both smart and faithful, and he was sent to a larger, Church-sponsored school.
There, he read letters from missionaries who had left France and come to America, and he was inspired to follow them. He continued to succeed in school, and entered the seminary.
He was ordained in 1827, and asked his bishop for permission to become a missionary, but the bishop denied his request, assigning him to a parish. Peter applied himself diligently to his ministry—he was known for his zeal and for his care for the sick—and within a few years, the parish was revitalized.
During this time, Peter came into contact with a group of priests gathering into a new missionary order dedicated to Mary. In 1831, he joined these Marists with the hope of finally reaching the missions, but they assigned him to be a spiritual director at a seminary. He stayed there for five years, helping the new order ground itself and receive official recognition.
Then, in 1836, the Marists were asked to send missionaries to islands in the south Pacific. Finally, Peter was allowed to follow his life’s longing, and he set out that year with seven others. After nearly a year’s voyage, Peter settled in Futuna, a small Polynesian island that is now part of the French-administered territory of Wallis and Futuna.
The group was welcomed to Futuna, and Peter set out to learn the local culture. After struggling with the language, he came to master it, and applied patience and courage to the isolation and poverty he met there. Slowly, his mission started to bear fruit among the local people.
Then, Futuna’s king came to fear Peter and Christianity because he saw that it would threaten his power and status. When the king’s own son sought baptism from Peter, the king decided that was enough. He enlisted his leading warrior, Musumusu, to kill Peter, and the soldier took a group of others to attack the missionary. They surprised Peter and clubbed him to death on this date in 1841.
It is said that Peter’s death led to many conversions, and that the whole island adopted Christianity soon after his death. The warrior who led the attack on Peter eventually claimed the faith for his own, and humbly asked that he be buried outside of the church that held Peter’s relics, so that anyone who came to honor Peter would have to walk over his grave to do it. Other relics of St. Peter rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica on campus.
St. Peter Chanel, you are patron saint of the south Pacific because you gave your life to bring the faith there—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Peter Chanel is in the public domain. Last accessed February 13, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
