Daily Gospel Reflection
Join the Notre Dame family of faith. Receive God’s Word and a unique reflection in your inbox each day.
May 5, 2022
Jesus said to the crowds:
“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.”
Jesus knew hunger every day of his earthly life, and he nourished his body with food.
But he also nourished his soul. While 40 days famished, he taught us that we too must take care to nourish our souls because, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4).
Wherever he went, Jesus perceived the hunger in those around him and tried to reorient their desires: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life” (Jn 6:27).
In the book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI describes a hierarchy of hunger initially proposed by the Jesuit Alfred Delp. Father Delp acknowledged that bread is important, freedom more important, but he believed most important of all is the unbroken fidelity and faithful adoration of Christ.
Benedict writes, “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. When God is regarded as a secondary matter that can be set aside temporarily or permanently on account of more important things, it is precisely these supposedly more important things that come to nothing.”
Jesus knew that we would get hungry and disoriented in the desert of life. For this reason, he left us something better than manna and more essential than bread.
May we crave this living bread above all else. And as the Father draws us toward himself, may we also attract 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
Judith, also known as Jutta, began her life as a wife and mother, and deepened her pursuit of holiness as a wandering hermit after her husband died and her children had grown.
Born to a German aristocratic family in the 13th century, she was married to a noble. She was inspired by St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a contemporary, and heard the Lord call her to follow him. She not only sought to serve God herself, but also led her household to do the same and was known for her support of the poor, in imitation of Elizabeth.
Early in their marriage, her husband thought Judith dressed too simply, and asked her to take on styles more in keeping with the fashions of the upper class. She gradually helped him see the virtue in detachment from material wealth, and he grew in his own faithfulness. He died while on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, leaving Judith to raise their family alone.
Many of her children entered monasteries as they matured, and after all had left the household, Judith gave her life to prayer and caring for the poor and sick. She gave everything she had to the poor except for one ragged dress, and went into the streets to beg for food for herself and for others.
Many people who had known her mocked and ridiculed her, but others treated her with reverence because they knew what she had given up. She wanted to separate herself from their praise, so she left and wandered the countryside, walking barefoot and helping those she encountered on her way.
She made her way into Prussia in 1260 and took up living as a hermit in a ruined building on the shore of a lake. People sought her out for her wisdom, and she was known for having instinctive insight into Scripture. She once said that three things can bring union with God: illness, exile from home, and voluntary poverty.
People who lived nearby reported seeing Judith raised from the ground in prayer, and she received a number of visions. She died of a fever after living in that place for four years, and miracles were reported to have occurred at her grave.
Judith is patron saint of Catholics in Prussia and Germany. The image seen above was reconstructed from her skull using forensic technology.
St. Judith, you were a faithful wife and mother who gave your life to the poor and sick—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Judith is available for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Last accessed March 6, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
