Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Brothers and Sisters,

Today we as a Church may ponder the question “What gives us life?” Or better yet, “What is the source from which we may obtain life?”

We may say a myriad of different things. We may think about food, water and shelter. We may think about a good job, family, friends or community. We may think about hobbies, nature, exercise, etc. We as Christians will even think about prayer, the sacraments and a

relationship with Jesus! All good answers, and all things that take time, work, and trust to attain and bring to fruition.

In the Gospel today, we continue to move through the Eucharistic scene of John 6. We see that after being fed miraculously, people began to trust Jesus to give them life, and were willing to seek Him out. They even traveled across the Sea of Galilee to find Jesus when they had lost Him. They had received life and desired to go back to the source. They seemingly must have had so much trust that Jesus could sustain them that they stopped, or at least paused, their conventional means of finding life. (ie. back at home, working a job, being with their families/guilds, etc.) They no longer wanted to labor for food that perishes, and for a brief moment asked how they can work for “the food that endures for eternal life.”

So for this week’s reflection, let us ask ourselves where do we first tend to place our time, work, and trust in order to find life? Are these things I turn to for life things that the Church, the body of Christ, encourages me to do? Do we believe that Jesus is the only true source of all things that give life? Or even more, do we trust that a life centered on the Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith, can be a life that is always full?

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will

never thirst.” -Jn 6:35

-TIM BRODERICK, PENN FOCUS TEAM DIRECTOR