Daily Gospel Reflection
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April 30, 2020
Jesus said to the crowds, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.
“It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.
“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”
Jesus knew about hunger. His ministry began with hunger—he spent 40 days in the desert without food and was afterward tempted to make bread out of stones. His reply to the tempter reveals that spiritual hunger is even more essential than that of the physical sort: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4; Dt 8:3).
When Jesus observed that the crowds were hungry, he fed them. When he perceived that they followed him for his miraculous food, he reoriented their desire: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life” (Jn 6:27). He brought them to the point that when he promised “the bread of God,” they responded, “Sir, give us this bread always” (Jn 6:34).
In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI describes a hierarchy of hunger originally proposed by the Jesuit Alfred Delp: “Bread is important, freedom is more important, but most important of all is unbroken fidelity and faithful adoration.”
Benedict goes on to write, “When this ordering of goods is no longer respected, the result is not justice or concern for human suffering. The result is rather ruin and destruction even of material goods themselves.”
We must be careful to discern our hungers and exercise wisdom before satisfying them. “When God is regarded as a secondary matter that can be set aside temporarily or permanently on account of more important things,” Benedict cautions, “it is precisely these supposedly more important things that come to nothing.”
In the desert of life, Jesus knew that we would get hungry. And so he left us something better than manna and more essential than bread.
May we seek the living bread from heaven in order to be truly fed; and in being fed, may we also feed others. As we are drawn by the Father, may we also draw others to the inexhaustible source of life—the Eucharist—in which Jesus himself continues to satisfy the restless hearts of this hungry world.
Prayer
All-powerful God, you are near to us and hear us when we pray. Enliven us with your Spirit, the fire of your love. Through our baptism we share in the life of your son, Jesus the Christ. Sustain your life within us by drawing us often to eat his body and drink his blood in the new and everlasting covenant that gives us eternal life. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Marie of the Incarnation is the founder of the Ursuline Sisters in Canada, and is a powerful example of trust in God.
Marie was born in 1599 to a wealthy merchant family in France. She wanted to enter the religious life from a young age, but her family arranged a marriage for her with a wealthy silk merchant, Claude Martin. They had a son together, and Marie said they had a happy marriage, while it lasted. Claude died just a few months after their son was born, leaving Marie already a widow at nineteen.
Marie decided to pursue religious life now that she had the freedom of a widow. She took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and began to live as a sister. In 1627. Marie read St. Teresa of Avila's autobiography and was profoundly inspired by the great Spanish mystic. Marie longed to travel to the New World and spread the Christian faith there.
In 1631, Marie entered the Ursuline convent in Tours, leaving her young son in the care of family friends. The accounts of her young son crying outside the gates of the convent and attempting to storm the gates with a small band of school fellows are heart-wrenching. Marie and her son endured great sorrow at their separation, but they continued to correspond, even when Marie's son became a Benedictine monk.
In 1633, Marie had a vision of a band of sisters and herself walking through a distant landscape with the Virgin Mary, and she interpreted this as a sign that she should travel to New France as a missionary. Marie began a correspondence with Jesuit priests in Quebec. They wanted female religious to minister to the native women in Quebec.
Marie's family and religious community objected to her going, but Marie persisted. She found another young noblewoman with a missionary spirit, Madeleine de la Peltrie, and together, they worked tirelessly toward their goal, Madeleine even entered into a legal marriage with a wealthy nobleman to fund the venture. In 1639, Marie and Madeleine set sail for Quebec, accompanied by five other women and two Jesuit priests.
Marie founded the first Ursuline Monastery in Quebec, now a National Historic Site of Canada, in 1642. Marie spent the remainder of her life working to educate all the women—French and native Canadian—in Quebec. Marie was a prolific writer, penning over 20,000 letters in her lifetime. She wrote powerfully on trust in God's providence, which had worked such powerful good in her own life:
"If we could, with a single interior glance, see all the goodness and mercy that exists in God's designs for each one of us, even in what we call disgraces, pains, and afflictions, our happiness would consist in throwing ourselves into the arms of the Divine Will."
Marie died on April 30, 1672 and was canonized by Pope Francis on April 2, 2014. A statue of Marie stands in front of Quebec parliament.
St. Marie of the Incarnation, bold missionary who trusted deeply in God's plan—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Marie of the Incarnation is in the public domain. Last accessed February 13, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
