Daily Gospel Reflection
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August 8, 2021
The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said,
“I am the bread that came down from heaven, ”
and they said,
“Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?
Do we not know his father and mother?
Then how can he say,
‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Jesus answered and said to them,
“Stop murmuring among yourselves.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,
and I will raise him on the last day.
It is written in the prophets:
They shall all be taught by God.
Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
Not that anyone has seen the Father
except the one who is from God;
he has seen the Father.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
One day earlier this summer, my children were playing with a few friends, thoroughly enjoying summer vacation. After watching them get completely lost in goofiness, I quipped, “What planet are you from?”
In reflecting on today’s gospel, I continue to think back to that scene a few weeks ago. I’ve read this passage from John countless times in my life. For the first time, however, I’ve found myself pondering, and identifying with, the confusion that the Jews’ express: “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother?” When I place myself in the story, I hear them asking, “What planet are you from?!”
When my wife and I reflect on the people our children are becoming, we marvel, chuckle, and occasionally grimace at how clearly we see in them some of the traits and tendencies we see in each other and in ourselves. I’m an educator, and I notice this time and again when I meet the parents of my students or when I teach multiple siblings. Of course, each of us is the child of our parents and usually have plenty of inherited traits to prove it.
I thank God every day for all that I’ve learned and inherited from my parents and pray equally as hard that my children inherit more of my positive traits than my negative ones! But because we believe in an incarnate God, we know that each of us is more than the sum total of inherited genetic material, and today’s passage is a cautionary tale about assuming too much based on who someone’s parents are.
Jesus’ audience in today’s story cannot imagine or comprehend the fullness of who he is. This is the miracle, and the gift, of the incarnation. Might we all more fully embrace and appreciate the person God has created us to become and celebrate and honor others as the unique children of God they are.
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
St. Dominic is one of the brightest saints the faith has produced, and he changed the Church with his dedication to embodying holiness so as to authentically proclaim the truth.
Dominic was born in 1170 in Castile, Spain, and went to university to study to become a priest. After his ordination, he took a trip with his bishop through France, where they met proponents of a heretical form of Christianity that was growing in popularity among the people. Believers of this heresy proposed two principles in the world—one good, one evil—and they believed that all physical matter was evil. Therefore, they rejected things of the body—they ate very little and had strict disciplines, which won the admiration of many people.
Dominic and his bishop began to counter this heresy through their preaching, but they had little credibility among the faithful because priests of the time lived a life of luxury and comforts. The strict lives of the heretics seemed heroic to the people.
Dominic’s answer was to establish an order of priests who would travel and preach against this heresy, living a simple life of prayer and intellectual study. The ideal for this community, the Order of Preachers, Dominic said, was “to pass on the fruits of contemplation” and to “speak only of God and with God.” Today, the Dominicans are present in 86 countries around the world.
While she was pregnant, Dominic’s mother had a vision that her son would light the world on fire like a hound running wild with a torch in its mouth.
The vision of Dominic’s mother came to fruition in the way he combined prayer and work. Prayer, Dominic knew, changes us, and thus, changes how we do our work. Our work, then, becomes an outflow of our prayer, even when it seemingly has nothing to do with spiritual matters. When we live a life rooted in prayer, our actions communicate God’s presence in places used to cold and darkness. Prayer transforms us into a hound running wild with a torch in its mouth—we set the world on fire
St. Dominic’s relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica, and he is also depicted there in stained glass. One window shows him receiving the rosary from Mary—he is known to have spread the devotional prayer through his preaching. He is often depicted with a star above his head because at his baptism, his mother saw a star shining from his chest. Thus, he is the patron saint of astronomers.
St. Dominic, who set the world on fire with prayer—pray for us!